On the 21st September, to my surprise, the New York Times carried this report by Nellie Bowles: “Some Protests Against Police Brutality Take a More Confrontational Approach”.
Both the writer of the headline and Ms Bowles herself in the article made some attempt to keep the dam plugged with the euphemistic reference to “a more confrontational approach”. But the facts themselves are reported honestly enough:
PORTLAND, Ore. — Terrance Moses was watching protesters against police brutality march down his quiet residential street one recent evening when some in the group of a few hundred suddenly stopped and started yelling.
Mr. Moses was initially not sure what the protesters were upset about, but as he got closer, he saw it: His neighbors had an American flag on display.
“It went from a peaceful march, calling out the names, to all of a sudden, bang, ‘How dare you fly the American flag?’” said Mr. Moses, who is Black and runs a nonprofit group in the Portland, Ore., area. “They said take it down. They wouldn’t leave. They said they’re going to come back and burn the house down.”
[…]
Nearly four months after the killing of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, some protesters against police brutality are taking a more confrontational — and personal — approach. The marches in Portland are increasingly moving to residential and largely white neighborhoods, where demonstrators with bullhorns shout for people to come “out of your house and into the street” and demonstrate their support.
These more aggressive protests target ordinary people going about their lives, especially those who decline to demonstrate allegiance to the cause. That includes a diner in Washington who refused to raise her fist to show support for Black Lives Matter, or, in several cities, confused drivers who happened upon the protests.
[…]
The American flag that generated controversy is displayed in Kenton, a neighborhood of Portland with small bungalows, lush front gardens and ripe fruit trees. Weeks after the confrontation, the husband and wife who fly the flag said they were fearful of retaliation from the roving protesters, who had found their phone number.
But they say they will not be intimidated into removing the flag.
I think that couple are wise as well as brave. Submission did not help this man:
But around 9:30, the group [“an autonomously organized direct action march” listed on the Black Lives Matter Portland Events page] was in some organizational chaos. They had decided that the neighborhood close by was too racially diverse for them to protest in. They needed to go somewhere whiter.
So the protesters caravaned 20 minutes away to Alberta, a more affluent neighborhood that began being gentrified in the 1990s. They reassembled and marched through the streets.
Neighbors in impressive Craftsman-style homes pulled down their shades and turned off their lights, though many could be seen peering out of dark windows. One woman stepped out of an expansive home looking angry; upon seeing the crowd, she quickly retreated indoors. A few young couples stood in their doorways. A Black woman driving past honked and cheered.
One white man stepped onto his patio clapping and hollering in support of the passing march. The group called for him to join. He smiled and waved them on, still clapping. They began to chant that he was spineless. He looked worried. But the march moved along, and he went back into his house.
“You’ll never sleep tight, we do this every night,” the protesters chanted.
There are 992 comments. When I spoke of a dam breaking at the New York Times, I was referring as much to the comments as to the article itself. Here are the top seven “Reader Picks” from the NYT’s overwhelmingly liberal readership:
Juliana James
Portland, Oregon | Sept. 21
I have had enough of the arrogance, self righteousness and selfish attitude of these kind of do or die protesters, they’re bullies bullying good people. To say being nice does not work, neither does being a violent threatening bully. Grow up and use your civil voice as a citizen to work long term for change within organizations that do not advocate shaming or blaming marches such as yours. You are feeding FOX news and helping Trump win, admit that and you will actually have made some progress.
15 Replies 1247 Recommend
John Zotto
Ischia | Sept. 21
These same tactics were used in Germany during the 1930s and the communist in Russia after the revolution. You are never pure enough and any deviation from the party line means trouble.
6 Replies 937 Recommend
Isully
Bronx | Sept. 21
…and this is how Trump gets re-elected.
5 Replies 921 Recommend
Dave BX
Goshen NY | Sept. 21
I would have a hard time imagining a NY Times article bending over backwards as this article does to try to explain violent tactics and harassments if the subjects were right wing protesters. They would be excoriated and rightfully so.
These tactics are unjustifiable and cannot be tolerated and only serve to get more votes for Trump.
4 Replies 908 Recommend
C
NYC | Sept. 21
Threatening to come back and burn someone’s house down because they refuse to take an American flag down? And people wonder why people are buying firearms across the political spectrum?
2 Replies 881 Recommend
Jim
PA | Sept. 21
Force me to pick a side? Well heck that’s easy; I choose to oppose anyone who threatens me. So go ahead and threaten me, and watch me side with the people who don’t.
Lesson: Don’t make enemies of your allies.
1 Reply 838 Recommend
Balderdash
NW | Sept. 21
I subscribed to WSJ when reporting in this paper described the protests as peaceful despite what I could see with my own eyes. I sincerely recommend subscribing to both papers for some much needed perspective. I’m deeply confused by the phrase “mostly peaceful” when events routinely include projectiles and fireworks thrown at police.
20 Replies 585 Recommend
I remain amused that people still think fox is even somewhat conservative…
-XC
Only appears because they are loosing votes.
Note what also is missing:
New York Times and others will not have an article saying how these Leftist/BLM violence and aggression are mostly done by males, and that property and jobs destroyed include many women property and jobs.
See how they forgot suddenly the feminist angle they are always so eagerly even to the point of faking news to create and protect male violence because the Left needs violence and the best who do that are males.
Only two ways this stops: 1) Trump intervenes with National Guard in the streets, FBI infiltrating, finding heads of the snakes, etc, the whole police state. He arrests governors who fail to uphold the Constitution (emergency declared, no time to sue them), targets the leaders for decade long prison terms, arrests the useful idiots marching, etc. or 2) the people rise up and there are a few bloodbaths at some of these “mostly peaceful” protests. Or a crowd tries to burn down someone’s house as they threaten here and the owner responds with sustained gunfire from multiple directions (homeowner, wife and kids all know how to shoot). I know the BLM, Antifa crowd have armed folks, but I’m guessing they are mostly new to firearms, have a vague notion of which end does what…, but there are millions more of us who can reliably put 10 rounds on target at distance.
I hope it’s #1. My assumption here is the bad guys here are playing for keeps, they smell the endgame of the overthrow of America. Am I wrong? Is there a likely third option?
If #2 happens, then we’ll see if the dam has really broken at the NYT and with their readers. Who will they side with when there are 100 dead “protesters” in some neighborhood?
One expects no better from the NYT, even in an article with some sense, but I have too often seen this kind of remark in other articles from those who know better about BLM and should know better by now about the facts – as if explicitly conceding one lie (not just using neutral phrasing) would help you fight others. I agree with Natalie that “Submission [does] not help”.
It was very natural for us to assume when we first saw the activist’s video that the police acted wrongly (though even that video has a brief but revealing ‘tell’ two-thirds in*).
It was doubtless just as natural for the people of Maycomb county to assume at first that poor Mayella Ewell had been the victim of a stronger and brutal Tom Robinson. But when more details emerge (as the narrative of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ progresses) it becomes dishonest of them not to review that belief. So here.
The transcript of officer Lane’s bodycam makes it clear that Floyd was foaming at the mouth from the start and was complaining he could not breathe before being put on the ground. When Officer Chauvin realised Floyd was having a drug episode, he stopped trying to arrest him and summoned an ambulance. Not long after, he took steps to speed it up when it emerged that a misunderstanding at the far end had not given it maximal priority (see last part of transcript, when Lane is in the ambulance, helping ambulance staff give George last-hope CPR, for cause of misunderstanding). Obviously, a man desiring his suspect’s death would have wanted the full 8 minutes and 23 seconds and more – or, far more likely still, would have put George inside a police car out of public view, then driven it slowly; he would not have tried to shorten the time.
This article from the US Spectator describes how closely the police behaviour mirrored Minnesota’s training on safe restraint of suspects having drug episodes, written and mandated for police by the Republican-free-for-decades Minnesota politicians. (It has a picture from the manual.)
The final autopsy has confirmed what the original one already indicated. Floyd has taken a multiple of the lethal dose of fentanyl, a drug notorious for causing respiratory arrest, and had lungs twice the normal weight because of the fluid with which they were filled.
None of this means we should switch off our attention to whatever else may emerge between now and the trial. But it does mean that, on the available evidence, Chauvin acted as the Minnesota Dems taught him and like a man trying to save his suspect from the consequences of an overdose, not vice versa. It makes
false on the evidence so far.
—
* Some two-thirds into the activist’s video, a man walks up and says, “Let me help – I saw the whole thing”. The activist suddenly becomes eager to get this man who ‘saw the whole thing’ out of his video, moving swiftly from a forcefully-‘polite’ demand he leave to threatening “I know where you live. I know where your parents live.” This struck me as odd – why is the activist so eager that a man who “saw the whole thing” be got rid off. It suggested to me that there was more to the story than the activist would have us know.
The American flag that generated controversy is displayed in Kenton, a neighborhood of Portland with small bungalows, lush front gardens and ripe fruit trees
Trying a little too hard; I live in Kenton (right on the park that one of the Nightly Riots organizes at, a few blocks from the police association hall they target). Most homes just have a yard and no fruit trees or other nonsense. Lush gardens are for enthusiasts.
That said, apart from the Very Progressive, people are sick of these posturing shits and their “look at me being performatively aggressive about this”. Needless to say, of course, almost everyone involved is lily white; Portland’s black population mostly seems to keep to the daytime peaceful protests that nobody has any problem with.
Sadly, the two candidates in the upcoming mayoral race are incumbent Ted “I did this!” Wheeler, and Sarah “Double Down” Iannarone, so we can’t do anything about local government, either. No matter who wins it will be someone who supports More Of This Bullshit.
A crowd of white people in Subarus and Priuses driving slowly, honking and yelling “Black Lives Matter!!” is not helpful, but it sure makes them feel useful and good and important*. The Black Power fist salute from a wee white lady in her early 20s is just face-palm-y.
(* Have seen this. More than once.)
Niall, you got there before me. I wasn’t aware that we had had a trial with a guilty verdict…
Mr George Floyd died of he drugs he had consumed – but I would still like to have a word with the police officer who was kneeling on him (oddly a hold that Minneapolis police officers are actually taught), my questions with the officer would start with “is it not an odd coincidence that you personally knew Mr Floyd and had worked with him?” and would continue with “why did you take Mr Floyd OUT of the police car when he started screaming and thrashing about (from the drugs) – why did you not drive him to the hospital straight away?”, the questions would move to the finances of the officer.
As for the NYT article – in many cities the “protests” have always been violent attacks, which have been going on since 2014 around the United States.
Sigivald – not a happy place to be. I suppose you are in a financial position where you can not move – I know the feeling Sir.
As for BLM – it is changing. It started off an entirely Marxist – and it mostly still is, but there is a growing non political criminal element in it.
Including violent pimps – who see an opportunity in the young women who are attracted to “the cause”.
But if you try and warn the young women you mention, she will only scream “RACIST” at you, and report you for something or other. As long as she stays in Portland she should be O.K. – it is only if she goes to a “protest” in a big city that she is likely to get into difficulties.
The NYT and the rest of the mainstream media generally have fanned the flames of violence from the start,, both by misreporting the deaths of a few black people and by totally ignoring the deaths of both white and black people whose deaths are at the hands of the people the media (and he education system) support.
The central Marxist claim supported by the education system and the media is that the police are “systemically racist” against black people.
This claim is false. The entire movement is based upon a LIE – till the media, and the education system, admit this, the conflict will continue.
The signs are not good – as any academic who tells the truth (that there is no “systematic institutional racism”) gets persecuted, driven from their job.
@-XC
I remain amused that people still think fox is even somewhat conservative…
Every night they have, a three hour prime time block of Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham. Before and after is McCallum and Bream, who are both less strident, but certainly conservative, and before that is The Five, which is usually two strident conservatives two more moderate conservatives (including, for example, Bush 43’s press secretary) against one moderate liberal. By what measure could you NOT call that conservative. I’m pretty much pro Trump, and although I am definitely a libertarian I am more aligned with the views on Fox than those of CNN. But even for me their saccharine, fawning coverage of he President makes me gag a little. They definitely serve a purpose offering a counter narrative, but you cannot seriously claim they are not conservative.
FWIW, I think Chris Wallace is one of the best interviewers on TV. He pisses off conservatives and liberals, which is usually a good sign. I think he is an excellent choice for the first and most important debate. He will be very hard on Trump (as he has been before) but he will not let up on Biden. So that is what the American people should expect in these debates.
We will hear Chauvin’s answers to your hypothetical questions at the trial. Meanwhile I can easily offer guesses.
It’s not that odd a hold for the Minnesota Dems to teach, when you consider that police need to combine effective restraining of suspects with not killing them – and it is only fair to assume the Minnesota Dems were in fact motivated to have their police achieve that combination, and especially the second point. Its use for ExDS makes a great deal of sense.
Obviously, there is nothing at all odd in Chauvin doing what he was taught was the safest way to hold a drug-tripping guy.
No. It is no vast surprise that two such people, living in the same city should have done shifts as bouncers at the same club. At first glance, Chauvin’s being the one who answered the forged-$20-bill call about an unidentified man looks very coincidental. There might be more to learn about either of these points – but currently there appears to be no reason to think that likely.
1) Chauvin had been taught (very much in line with current medical theory) that if ExDS hit, it was essential to have several people restrain the subject – that his own struggles would kill him otherwise. Putting him in the car might have made that harder to achieve.
2) FWIW, Floyd begged, repeatedly not to be put in the car. He spoke of claustrophobia and begged them to ‘crack a window’ if they put him in the car – but I read this as simply a more indirect, unconscious way of Floyd’s expressing his increasing need for air.
If he had, he would now be being asked why he did not immediately summon an ambulance so their crew could begin treating Floyd straight away.
If Floyd had died in the ambulance, would you be checking the finances of the paramedics?
(Since Chauvin is going to trial, the state of Chauvin’s finances will likely have been checked as a mere matter of routine that would happen to anyone under any kind of investigation.)
Floyd was complaining of claustrophobia WHILE SITTING IN HIS OWN CAR, before he got out at the officer’s direction. The store owners where Floyd stopped to buy cigarettes had a male employee who stated that he “thought Floyd was drunk” and was worried that Floyd was in “no condition to drive a car”. It wasn’t just the fake $20.00 bill that had them concerned. As far as I’ve heard, Chauvin didn’t work INSIDE the club, he sat outside in a car observing the patrons and the bar’s owner said that Floyd and Chauvin didn’t know each other.
@ Paul Marks
“totally ignoring the deaths of both white and black people whose deaths are at the hands of the people the media (and he education system) support”.
Try this website:
https://www.unz.com/sbpdl/
He reports on the summer violence committed by black people during the summer but when the weather becomes colder and they stay indoors, he researches official statistics to back up his claims (i.e. such ne’er do wells as the FBI, Local Police and prosecutor statistics etc.).
There is a VAST number of black on white violence and murders that are never reported except locally and never reach the mainstream media.
A simple reading of the headlines will give a flavour of the problem and references the original reports.
I saw somewhere that BLM now seems more likely to mean Burn, Loot, Murder.
Just as in the Floyd case, there is contradictory information on Breonna Taylor. We report; you decide.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6_QM8h_u5E
It will clarify the Grand Jury decision. The warrant on the Taylor residence was part and parcel of a multipronged raid on a drug network and tree “trap” houses. The investigators had reason and surveillance to support the allegation that the Taylor address was the “stash” house. It is a shame that goons and clowns have dominated the dissemination of this story. It would have been far more productive to have a wide ranging debate over Castle Doctrine and surprise warrant service. Ironically, Breonna would still be alive if the police had followed through on the “no knock” provision of the warrant.
There was riots and protests before, but the reactions was different – what happend to america ❓
Why this hate, his ideological fight? I don’t get it.
“The final autopsy has confirmed what the original one already indicated. Floyd has taken a multiple of the lethal dose of fentanyl, a drug notorious for causing respiratory arrest, and had lungs twice the normal weight because of the fluid with which they were filled.”
Caution, the following may be hoax, but there are those that claim Floyd had just swallowed a bag of drugs when he was apprehended.
This isn’t just driven by the grandiose moral prigs of the Mandarin caste, allied with thugs and goons, but funded by donations from your self dealing betters, politicians, multinationals, billionaires, foundations…….some of which is coerced or extorted, as well.
Mighty nice brand name you got there, be a shame if anything happened to it.”
“They had decided that the neighborhood close by was too racially diverse for them to protest in. They needed to go somewhere whiter.”
Can you even begin to imagine the uproar there would have been, had a group calling itself White Lives Matter decided decided to protest violently in a predominantly black neighbourhood. Those taking part would have been arrested so quickly their feet would not have touched the ground.
When the police asked Floyd why he was foaming at the mouth, he replied “I was hooping earlier”. The question of whether a man who said he had inserted drugs into his anus (believed by some users to be a more effective way of getting them into your system fast, so the effect is greater) had also, even more recently, put yet more drugs into his mouth, seems (to me) supererogatory to understanding the ability of a drug overdose to explain his death.
The trial will doubtless consider whether there is evidence for any further act of drug taking beyond what ‘hooping’ signifies.
(Of course, there is perhaps some slight range of meaning of the street-slang word ‘hooping’ across the US. That it means drug-taking by orifice, not by injection, is, I believe, certain – not that I’m an expert on these matters 🙂 – but, for all I know, its well-established specific anal meaning in other parts of the US might not exclude ‘ingestion by mouth’ in Minnesota, and/or people who think so are the origin of the rumour.)
Good answers Niall.
Good posts on Floyd and Taylor. Now for some on Jacob Blake, another cause celebre for BLM.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/25/us/rusten-sheskey-account-jacob-blake-shooting-invs/index.html
He was taking his children, which he did not have lawful custody of, away from their mother, in a car he did not own. The mother called the cops, told them “He’s got my kid. He’s got my keys,”, and the cops had to respond.
He was armed, he resisted arrest, and he was reaching into the car. The shooting was wholly justified.
The saddest part of the whole thing?
After the shooting and the massive fund raising for Blake, the mother who called the cops claimed she was his fiancee. So the cops reacted for nothing?
https://youtu.be/xOtTPdw1vCo
As some have noted (not least the folks at SBPDL), you can’t really govern or police such illogical people. You just stay out of their way, keep them in their ghettos, and let them degenerate themselves into oblivion.
Freedom and the US constitution are more likely than the ghetto to be forcefully degenerated or deplorabled into oblivion by such a strategy, Wobbly Guy – especially if your “keep them in the ghetto” means, as it surely would, keep the flow of welfare into the ghetto. With that proviso, ghetto state could be more self-sustaining than the highly developed and constructed US civilisation.
For a century after the civil war freed them, US blacks had higher labour force participation rates, and slightly better marriage statistics, than whites. Then in the 60s and 70s, both those figures plummeted absolutely and relatively – something the PC pretend is “the legacy of slavery” without ever explaining why this ‘legacy’ took a century to appear. (I trust we all know what actually was inflicted on them a century after the civil war ended – by same party, with the same name, hastily re-inventing its tactics but not its true nature.)
Since the late 60s, the left have wanted blacks to be the cannon fodder of the revolution – Charles Manson’s mad ‘Helter-Skelter’ ideology was merely the crudest version of this. Like Manson, the left are deeply disappointed at black’s slowness to riot and rebel and become the revolution’s cheap, expendable martyrs. I’m sure the PC will continue to despise and be disappointed in the tendency of real blacks, like reality in general, not to confirm to their theories, but when your own theory, Wobbly Guy, has you in effect agreeing with their proposal to remove the (ghetto) police, it is wise to review it.
@Niall,
Yes, the post-war period was generally good for the US, and the blacks benefitted hugely. At the same time, they had robust social institutions such as the Church and the artificially imposed nuclear family structure to help check their worst excesses. That avenue is forever sealed and they now worship welfarism, gibmedats, and hedonism.
Still, their crime rates even then were indicative, and it was disproportionately high in the 1950s and after.
https://scholarworks.umb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1219&context=trotter_review
You want to rehabilitate them? Get them back to some semblance of civilisation as we define it? It would take the very heavy hand of the government, much more than libertarians or even modern conservatives can ever abide, to bring them back in line. You have to be hard, not bleeding heart. Domestic colonialism and paternalistic governance, essentially. But it would never work now given the damage post-modernism has done to your institutions.
http://webmail.azeah.com/article/biological-realism-can-help-blacks-more-than-socialism/
You guys just don’t have the stomach for it. The situation has been clearly spiraling downwards for decades. To expect any difference going forward is ridiculous.
The other alternative is de facto segregation, or at least, segregation for the connected and liberal elites from the blacks and their associated problems. The democrats were smart about it, driving blacks from valuable inner city areas into the suburbs and less valuable estates. AFFH was a prime example of this, as was the stop-and-frisk policy formerly practiced in New York, meant to nudge nudge nudge them away from gentrifying urban areas.
http://webmail.azeah.com/jderbyshire/trump-is-dogwhistling-to-white-suburbia-quite-right-too/
They think then that whatever happens, the riots, protests, general high crime rates, is happening away from them. Yeah, they want their revolution, and they are getting it.
Funniest thing is, the liberals and commies stupidly got their own children infected, and now they’re burning their own cities. Example: Portland.
I laugh.
Let them burn, both the blacks and the liberals. You owe them nothing. And there’s nothing you, or Trump, or anybody else can do anyway. At least until they have burned themselves down to a nub and the wiser heads amongst them finally have enough sway to say ‘enough’.
@Niall Kilmartin
For further discussions, could you please tell me your source?
It would certainly steer some discussions in a different direction if there were more than 100 years between the end of slavery and economic and social exclusion.
(I’ll assume you actually miswrote your question here. What I said was: it was more than 100 years between the end of slavery and the start of modern ghetto pathologies that the PC excuse and call a legacy of slavery. Exclusion from aspects of white society, including high-paid prestige jobs, was very evident in that century, What was not evident was blacks failing to marry and stay married and raise their kids. What was also not lacking was blacks participating in the workforce – including holding some middle-class-style jobs, though statistically of course, tending to have to pursue lower-status, less-well-paid jobs much more than whites.
So, assuming you were asking for evidence of what I said, that is for when there appeared significant statistical difference between black and white as regards labour-force participation and marriage, I will write my answer.)
I quite understand why my statement about these statistics before and after the 60s is one that, by the will of the PC, you have not previously met and are now wondering how to source.
1) To answer your specific question:
1a) To find the statistical data referenced and discussed, the books of Thomas Sowell and Charles Murray are both good places to start. Sowell discusses both marriage data and labour-force participation-rate data in several works, including ‘The Vision of the Anointed’ (IIRC) and ‘Affirmative Action Around the World’. Murray’s ‘Losing Ground’ discusses US labour-force participation data, especially data on blacks, from the 1940s through the relevant period.
1b) A specific source for this data is US Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington DC, US Government Printing Office, 1975) p135. See also US Bureau of the Census, ‘Marital Status and Living Arrangements: March 1992’ in Current Population Reports , Series P-20, No 468 (Washington Government Printing Office, 1993), pp 1,2.
2) Having given myself typist’s cramp just typing all that out, 🙂 I will now entreat you to buy some Sowell, Murray, Walter Williams and/or similar works for yourself and check their stats and references for yourself. Be aware:
2a) If you get a scanned book, its references may not be linked to their pages. In that case especially (and, in my experience to a lesser degree normally) cross-referencing text to its references is easier in an old-fashioned paper-page book than a kindle book, so if that’s what you are buying it for, be advised.
2b) I will endorse Sowell’s warning against the pseudo-footnote that abounds in PC writing (and can be found elsewhere). I once read a book that footnoted a hostile statement about a republican president. Turning to the reference, I read:
That was it – that was the evidence for the statement! 🙂 – but the writer had tried to make the casual reader think it was sourced (I found it in some book called ‘The Imperial Presidency’ on a charity bookstall I manned. I quote the precise words from memory but I’ll answer for the correctness of my point). Do NOT assume that a footnote means a statement has been researched, until you have verified it or, by some other such tests, that the scholar is honest. (I almost always read all footnotes, and have found the occasional very rare honest-typo-style mistake in Thomas Sowell’s works, never mind those of lesser scholars).
3) Last and most important: Sowell (not only Sowell) several times speaks of sweeping assertions (usually made by the PC in recent times):
This issue is an excellent example. The point is that no-one offers, and no-one asks for, evidence that things excused as ‘a legacy of slavery’ were in fact commoner soon after the end of black slavery, instead of becoming common soon after the start of political correctness that targeted blacks. The ideology causes the effect, supplies the deflecting explanation of it, and suppresses discussion of it.
@Niall Kilmartin:
Thanks!
I will looking for this in the future.
The dam is breaking a little further: even someone in the NYT is covering Mr. Quinn’s report on what he learned after spending four months attending BLM events while dressed in the costume used by the highly-organised supervisors of these very unspontaneous riots.
H/t Instapundit, whose summary is: