Understanding the False Equivalency Narrative about BLM Protests and Jan 6 Insurrection

Racist Trope: Why Isn't There Punishment for Violence During the George Floyd Protests?

A current talking point by Trump and some surrogate apologists is that the Jan 6th protesters are treated unfairly because many of them were prosecuted but during the protests for George Floyd's murder, many protesters committed acts of violence and crimes and they were not punished.

BLM protests are not the same as rioters/looters.

Looting and protesting are not the same. Focusing only on looting and equating this with all protesters is simple-minded and scapegoating and will inevitably lead to more of the same in the future. This is true for police officers too - there are many good police officers who are forced to work within a broken system. Some of these police have shown their sympathy to protesters. And many protesters who went out of their way to protect buildings, stop looting and protect police.
And in fact, looters vary widely:

Some looters are fringe groups who are against the protesters and want to make them look bad (and possibly start a race war).
Some looters are white people who don't understand the repercussions of looting. (This terrific post from BET shows over a dozen incidents in which people of color had to tell white people to stop looting.)
Some looters are protesters who were met with violence so they were violent in return.
Some looters have no interest in the protests at all and are simply taking advantage of the situation.

Rioters were in fact prosecuted

Rioters were in fact prosecuted, but it is also important to remember that the Jan 6th incident was a federal crime which has a harsher punishment attached to it. Nonetheless, there were thousands of rioters prosecuted during the George Floyd protests:

Here is a list of all the prosecutions after the riots of 2020.

From the Prosecution Project,

Since the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 by Minneapolis police and the resulting waves of protests nationwide, tPP has fielded many requests to help provide a count of resulting felony cases. The early summer protests, riots, and sporadic uprisings resulted in over 10,000 arrests nationwide. The FBI later expanded that number to more than 13,600 (as of June 6, 2020). We have spoken with journalists, academic researchers, attorneys, community and prisoner support organizations, and many others.

A June 22, 2020, article from The Washington Post tallied over 14,000 arrests made since May 27. 

The Hill reported over 17,000 arrests had been made in the first two weeks of protests.

From the Associated Press, 

The AP found that more than 120 defendants across the United States have pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial of federal crimes including rioting, arson and conspiracy. More than 70 defendants who’ve been sentenced so far have gotten an average of about 27 months behind bars. At least 10 received prison terms of five years or more.

In Denver, 33 people have been convicted of crimes related to the demonstrations.

Dems did condemn the violence

From USA Today, 

Joe Biden, the party’s presumptive nominee, wrote in a statement that protesting police brutality is “right and necessary” and the “American response....But burning down communities and needless destruction is not,” Biden wrote. “Violence that endangers lives is not. Violence that guts and shutters businesses that serve the community is not.”

Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the majority whip of the House of Representatives, told The Washington Post that the movement for racial justice suffers when it is “hijacked” by violence.

"We have to make sure we do not allow ourselves to play the other person’s game,” Clyburn said. “Peaceful protest is our game. Violence is their game. Purposeful protest is our game. This looting and rioting, that's their game. We cannot allow ourselves to play their game." 

Black leaders in many communities have echoed these calls, urging protesters not to shift their focus from "justice" to "violence." Some also blamed the violence on "white fringe elements" infiltrating the demonstrations.

And after clashes between protesters and police turned violent in Chicago last weekend, Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot said there is "no justification for criminal behavior," according to The New York Times. 

 From Reuters,

...after George Floyd’s death, Joe Biden repeatedly condemned violent protests. In a May 31 post on his blog shortly after George Floyd’s death, he wrote, “Protesting such brutality is right and necessary. It’s an utterly American response. But burning down communities and needless destruction is not. Violence that endangers lives is not.” ( here , here ). On August 30, Joe Biden condemned violence at protests in Portland (here) by releasing a statement on his campaign website (here), which said, “The deadly violence we saw overnight in Portland is unacceptable […] as a country we must condemn the incitement of hate and resentment that led to this deadly clash. It is not a peaceful protest when you go out spoiling for a fight.” (More here )

From Fayetteville Observer,

In June, former President Barack Obama praised the BLM protests as they went nationwide, in a piece for Medium. But he wrote: “Let’s not excuse violence, or rationalize it, or participate in it. If we want our criminal justice system, and American society at large, to operate on a higher ethical code, then we have to model that code ourselves.”

 

Jan 6 does not represent all republicans but it is an assault on democracy

Another difference is that the protests after George Floyd was protesting violence and human rights violations whereas the Jan 6 protesters were against the peaceful transfer of power from a lawful election.  The violence on Jan 6 was an attempt to subvert the transfer of power after a legitimate election.

There has been a lot of political talking points lately that try to make the argument that there were no democrats upset with the "BLM protests" after the George Floyd killing in 2020 and so no one who supported the BLM movement should be disparaging the Jan 6th insurrection.  This is a false equivalency narrative that makes a number of erroneous assumptions and conclusions.  I will outline below how our class can help you understand the narrative:

There is a difference between BLM protests and Riots

During our unit on research, we learned to be critical about claims and we have learned and during our unit on social structure and the influence of the media we learned about the enormous impact the media has on US citizens and how false narratives can spread via social media.  In the case of the "BLM riots".  The false narrative combines two different ideas.  People often combine these two groups because of the tendency for people to see outgroups as homogeneous.  For many Americans, both the Black Lives Matter protesters and the riots that occurred are outgroups for them.  Or, more generally, for many white Americans, anyone not white is an outgroup.  So in this case, there is an assumption that all people who rioted are the same as all Black Lives Matter protesters.  Much of the media coverage was largely focused on the rioters. However, hundreds of thousands of people protested peacefully. This is an old problem!  In Baltimore after there were riots in 2015, hundreds of people united and worked together helped to clean the city, including these preschool kids:

And this article from Black Westchester highlights the enormous number of people who protested peacefully.

Despite the large peaceful protest, the media will focus on the color of the rioters and paint a broad racial brush over the incident turning the riot into a condemnation of the black urban poor and all those associated with it. But this rarely happens when those in the majority behave badly. When that happens, the offenders might be denigrated, but not their whole race or their whole social class or culture.  Here is a satirical news report demonstrating how silly it would look if the media actually did that:
 


Putting the cart before the horse; Why are they protesting in the first place? 
Another aspect of Baltimore is the criticism of the rioters without acknowledging the issues that lead people to the outrage that sparks riots.  Here is a quote from Dr. King:

 "But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity. Rev. Dr. M.L.King, Jr., March 14, 1968

And this article in the Atlantic that was written by a guy who grew up in Baltimore and knows the dynamics of the community well.  Similar to Dr. King, the author states:

The people now calling for nonviolence are not prepared to answer these questions. Many of them are charged with enforcing the very policies that led to Gray's death, and yet they can offer no rational justification for Gray's death and so they appeal for calm. But there was no official appeal for calm when Gray was being arrested. There was no appeal for calm when Jerriel Lyles was assaulted. (“The blow was so heavy. My eyes swelled up. Blood was dripping down my nose and out my eye.”) There was no claim for nonviolence on behalf of Venus Green. (“Bitch, you ain’t no better than any of the other old black bitches I have locked up.”) There was no plea for peace on behalf of Starr Brown. (“They slammed me down on my face,” Brown added, her voice cracking. “The skin was gone on my face.")
When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is "correct" or "wise," any more than a forest fire can be "correct" or "wise." Wisdom isn't the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the community.

This article from the Baltimore Sun documents many incidents that have created a feeling of disrespect and not being taken seriously among the poor black community living in Baltimore.

Over the past four years, more than 100 people have won court judgments or settlements related to allegations of brutality and civil rights violations. Victims include a 15-year-old boy riding a dirt bike, a 26-year-old pregnant accountant who had witnessed a beating, a 50-year-old woman selling church raffle tickets, a 65-year-old church deacon rolling a cigarette and an 87-year-old grandmother aiding her wounded grandson.
Those cases detail a frightful human toll. Officers have battered dozens of residents who suffered broken bones — jaws, noses, arms, legs, ankles — head trauma, organ failure, and even death, coming during questionable arrests. Some residents were beaten while handcuffed; others were thrown to the pavement.
And in almost every case, prosecutors or judges dismissed the charges against the victims — if charges were filed at all.

The use of unfocused, random violence in the US is a response to not being taken seriously.  It is a response to feelings of being ignored and powerless.  I do not think this is how we should react to those feelings, but I want to point out that our culture creates that reaction.  See this post about masculinity, this post about school shootings, this post about Ferguson, Missouri.  All of these are examples of violent masculinity; that is violence means you are taken seriously and you are to be reckoned with.  The Huffington Post explains that here and Dr. King also talked about that nearly 50 years ago (from Time magazine):

“And I contend that the cry of ‘black power’ is, at bottom, a reaction to the reluctance of white power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the Negro...I think that we’ve got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years.”

To be clear, I want to state emphatically that I do not think that destroying property, setting fires, attacking police are helpful and justifiable ways to deal with the frustrations of the community in Baltimore or Ferguson or [you name it].  However, I understand the destruction in terms of the larger cultural forces that promote violence and feelings of helpless powerlessness.  I don't think that anyone should paint a broad brush over the black community any more than you would paint a broad brush over all cops everywhere.  It is just as ridiculous to say that all cops are corrupt or all cops engage in police brutality as it is to say that "all of those people need to simply follow the law" or all of those people need to raise their kids better".