Almost exactly five years ago, on June 6th, 2020, protests erupted in Britain after the killing of George Floyd. Thousands hit the streets in London, Manchester, Nottingham, Wolverhampton, and Bristol, in demonstrations that included toppling statues, blocking the M6 freeway, and in London, hurling flares and rolling bicycles at police. The BBC headline described “largely peaceful” protests:
“Mostly peaceful protest” didn’t enter the cultural lexicon as an iconic media absurdity until months later, when poor CNN reporter Omar Jimenez did a standup in front of a burning building above the immortal chyron, “FIERY BUT MOSTLY PEACEFUL PROTESTS AFTER POLICE SHOOTING.” CNN posterized Jimenez twice, as he was also onscreen with Wolf Blitzer when the word “violent” disappeared from a tagline mid-broadcast. Most mainstream observers defended the oxymoronic approach, hailing a September 2020 study that mathematically characterized the mostly-peacefulness of that summer’s protests (93%!) while arguing the public should be focused on greater violence-s of racism, colonialism, police brutality, etc.
The current Los Angeles riots have revived “mostly peaceful” in a big way. American officials and commentators are avoiding the infamous “mostly” construction and returning with “largely peaceful” (New York Times), “overwhelmingly peaceful” (a rebranded “Kamala D. Harris”) or just “peaceful protests” (Cory Booker). Go overseas, though, or down a peg to the don’t-give-a-damn tier of propagandists, and you’ll see “mostly peaceful” back word-for-word.
This episode’s coverage hysterics (lowlights below) have somehow already lapped the Summer of Floyd. Once again, the public is being trained in distinctions between illegitimate and legitimate protest, regressive force versus righteous resistance. You can agree with it or not, but anyone who’s been to college knows what this is, and we should stop trying to hide it:
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Author: Matt Taibbi
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