Wow, that is really paranoid!

@WilyRickWiles Yeah, poorly worded. She works with people and has to live with neighbors. Statements get colored by the situation.

You can't expect a group of people--a movement--to behave uniformly.

@WilyRickWiles I agree with you but that doesn't mean you shouldn't condemn even a small amount of their actions. It's the argument of "mostly peaceful protests". Just because 10% are rioting and the rest aren't doesn't mean that it's a peaceful protest and when you don't call out the bad behavior, you are condoning it.

Forcing people to adhere to your ideology is non-American and anti-freedom. When she sits there and makes excuses saying "Oh they are just young people who want change" fuck that nonsense, young people can be wrong in their behavior and it should be called out.

@BlackoutNJ I'm not going to be trapped into the respectability politics game--allowing protesters to be divided between "bad protesters" and "good" (i.e. coopted) ones.

@WilyRickWiles My counter to that is that while these tactics are "non-violent" these tactics escalate QUICKLY. What if they touched her? She had to backup in order for them not to make contact with her. What if she slapped their hand away and she gets beat up? This is razor edge thin into escalating into violence. When you have a mob of people who are highly emotional, anything can happen. Look at the soy-boys in Portland...individually they are weak simpish men and overweight feminists but together, they have balls of steel and they act like they are on PCP.

@BlackoutNJ And I acknowledge how the powerful, if not public opinion, have historically been moved when their property is threatened, and less so when protests are uniformly peaceful. Moreover, I acknowledge how even peaceful protests have been met with violence and criminalized.

@BlackoutNJ I'd say the best way to cool down the protests is for our elected leaders to meet some of their demands, at least in a symbolic way.

@WilyRickWiles I guess so. Tim Scott was trying to pass police reform but they shot it down. That is one area that everyone can agree on, although, 9/10 of the situations that were brought up in the media were not excessive force situations and justified shootings.

@WilyRickWiles Meet some of their demands? Ok, so let's look at defunding police, what is that going to accomplish in reality? And I am serious when I ask that? Is it suppose to stop police from shooting people? Is it going to stop or curb the crime people do because they feel oppressed? Is it going to change how schools are run?

@WilyRickWiles We actually can expect people to act uniformly because that is what is allowed under the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Where does it say restricting peoples movements, violence and destruction is permitted? This myth that that has to happen to get peoples attention is a BS.

@hodrob There are all sorts of debates we can have about what police should and shouldn't do, but the more important point is that none of the social problems they are supposed to fix will actually be solved until communities get more funding. Reallocating police funds, which are the bulk of city budgets, is one way of doing that.