Bad Boys II

[Dill]

(05-30-2020, 08:48 PM)hollodero Wrote: Dill Wrote: Finally, I am puzzled that anyone would say "it seems a real hard task" to say that burning stuff down and looting is wrong and not helpful to the cause.  People have been doing that on the Sunday talk shows all day today. AM Joy had six people doing that all at once, including Joy.

I don't know. I saw some half-hearted approaches to that. I have to admit though that I have no real idea about the general media reaction. My glimpses showed me some diminishment. (Just as an example I heard some person refusing to call it "riot" and wanting to call it "civil unrest", for sure that sounds more noble. I don't like that message.)

Also, I saw on these boards a meme with Kaepernick saying something like "what do you mean, my peaceful approach didn't fit you either". Another compared looting to republican tax cuts or to the Boston tea party. Another read "Burning down a city won't bring back Floyd" and the answer " bombing middle east won't undo 9/11". I see a lot of that logic, and I see that as a defense of events and deeds that should not get that kind of defense. Similar to comments like "these things have to be put in context, it might be a necessity to desperately fight the system..." or that the media sensationalizes the violence - things I can not get behind as a reaction and that I do see as excusing.

1. Dino posted (#15,256) a "This . . .  Is Why" Kaepernick meme which connects the outrage and inaction following his taking a knee to the image of the officer's knee on Floyd's neck.  That seems to foreground the point that K was protesting a real problem. D's post # 15,272 takes a similar tack, showing a meme leading with a picture of a riot with the heading "Why can't you protest peacefully?" followed by six different pictures of public public peaceful protests for which protestors were criticized--e.g. Kobe Bryant wearing an "I can't breathe" t-shirt at a basketball game.

2. Don't recall the meme on tax cuts, but the response to the tweet from Charlie Kirk (again, Dino is the culprit, #15,285) was not an "excuse" from any angle I look at it. One can't logically get from "Bombing the Middle East won't undo 9/11" to "so it's ok to riot." That would be saying "violence didn't work, so let's try it again." This seems rather a point about the Right's selectivity regarding the efficacy of rage-directed violence. Kirk again is the target of the Boston Tea party analogy (posted by Dino--who else!--#15,271), which I think brings out nicely the point that many on the American right DO celebrate violent protest when it is for the "right cause" and when all other avenues have been blocked. But not for black people's civil rights ever, since that is never the "right cause."

Based upon the offered examples, you seem to be saying that memes foregrounding the inefficacy of peaceful protest and the tone deafness of a white majority Right to this problem "excuse" the violence. Have I understood you correctly? Or would dispute that this is what the memes are really doing, or intended to do?