Are your views consistent on the HK and BLM protests?

[UltraDolphinRevolution]

So I admit the last thread was problematic because the scope of comparison was limited.

However, the two movements have sometimes been treated very differently in media, e.g. FOX news. So what is your view? Why?

[I personally view both protest movements as riots.]

 

[notimp]

Here is a fun one for you.

Legal and historical experts say that the word riot is a loaded one: While it aptly describes some events that have unfolded during the past two weeks, using it risks eclipsing the full picture by zooming in on a small, sensational slice of the action.

“Riot suggests pandemonium,” says john a. powell, a professor of law and African American studies at the University of California, Berkeley (who does not capitalize his name in recognition of its being a slave name). “What’s happening across the country and across the world is a call for justice, a call for police accountability, for the recognition that black lives matter too,” powell says. “Rioting detracts from all of that.”

“For those who wish this would all go away,” says University of Michigan’s Thompson, riot might seem like just the word they’re looking for. “They would rather focus on the minority incidents where things have gotten particularly chaotic,” she says, “as a way to dismiss it.” People have looted stores and broken windows and set fires. But the vast majority of protests have been peaceful.

Compared to riot, a word like uprising or rebellion does more to suggest a struggle for justice, a warranted response to oppression, an attempt to demand change outside a system that has failed to yield it. Labeling the George Floyd protests as riots capitalizes on the fact that “people have an easier time digesting frames of black criminality than black freedom,” says Nikki Jones, a professor of African American Studies at Berkeley. It helps push away the notion that a passive observer might be complicit in anything by being passive. It also gives cover to those who might use harsh tactics to bring the unrest to an end.

src: https://time.com/5849163/why-describing-george-floyd-protests-as-riots-is-loaded/

 

[Seliph]

Lol another one of these.

I think a better term than riot would be uprising.

Anyways, the two movements are totally different. The Hong Kong protests are about Hong Kong's sovereignty and the BLM protests are about the US prison-industrial complex. The only correlation is state-sanctioned police violence against protestors.

 

[UltraSUPRA]

I don't know what's going on over in Hong Kong, other than that it's to separate them from China.

 

[Taleweaver]

Erm... If they aren't riots, then what are they? Is a peaceful protester routing or not?

I'm not trying to be sarcastic here : I feel this is a linguistic situation that requires a more thorough knowledge of English than I have. So the following might be a bit pedantic, for which I'm sorry...

Both Hong Kong residents and black people in the US feel as if they're being oppressed. In Hong Kong's case, it is harder to deny, as it pretty much openly changes the city state's laws in favor of 'neigboring' state China,against the will of the citizens. Black people in the US have at least in theory the exact same laws to avoid by as others (white people, basically). But they feel impressed because in practice the laws are bent depending on skin color.

Either way... Because of their (at least perceived) oppression, both groups enact civil protests in an effort to stop it. In both cases, the ruling class doesn't want to give in to demands. And as always happens in large protests : there is a subgroup that does not believe in peaceful protests and resorts to violence.
Also in both cases, the ruling class tries to dismiss the large group that just wants to enable a fair treatment for them by pretending that everyone in this group is violent, so they can play the 'we don't negotiate with terrorists' card(1).

TL;DR: they're both in a similar situation. But depending on the definition of 'riots' I'd say they both are our they both aren't.

Oh, and : fox News isn't really media... It's a conservative propaganda machine for the US. The fact they report a situation drastically different (apparently... I have no idea on their stance on Hong Kong) is something you can throw on the pile of evidence of that statement.


(1): this also gives the ruling class a direct motivation to enact violence on its citizens : you can create an excuse to not listen to tens of thousands of your citizens if you just send a couple dozen people in the field to treat the place, and then pretend that these vandals represent tens of thousands. Whether or not this actually happens is debatable, though

 

[omgcat]

ITT: Chinese fighting for basic human rights is a protest, black people fighting for basic human rights are rioters. change my mind. It's plainly obvious that both are protests suffering from agents provocateurs.

 

[Sicklyboy]

I think it's incredibly disingenuous to frame either as a black-and-white "riot or protest". Both have been protests spattered with incidents that have turned into riots at certain times and places.

 

[Rail Fighter]

Is BLM the same as Antifa? If so, it's just an pretext as everything the left do.

 

[UltraDolphinRevolution]

The "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville was mostly peaceful as well, yet most people did not call them that. The media referred to them as "deadly". I have never seen the description "deadly BLM protests/riots".
A Jew who also grew up in Germany once said on television: If the air conditioning at 40° in a train wagon does not work, how would you feel if the employer told you "but in most wagons they do work!".
Most German National Socialists in World War 2 also did not kill Jews. It is not comforting at all.

However, the rioters in HK, in America and the Nazis did not condemn their problematic minority.
There is a video by the BBC where a female leader in HK explicitily refused to condem violence.

 

[omgcat]

The "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville was mostly peaceful as well, yet most people did not call them that. The media referred to them as "deadly". I have never seen the description "deadly BLM protests/riots".
A Jew who also grew up in Germany once said on television: If the air conditioning at 40° in a train wagon does not work, how would you feel if the employer told you "but in most wagons they do work!".
Most German National Socialists in World War 2 also did not kill Jews. It is not comforting at all.

However, the rioters in HK, in America and the Nazis did not condemn their problematic minority.
There is a video by the BBC where a female leader in HK explicitily refused to condem violence.

you mean the rally that lead to counter protesters getting run over by a car driven by James Alex Fields Jr.?

yeah man, totally not a deadly rally when a white nationalist supporter runs over people with a car.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlottesville_car_attack#Ideology

An ex-schoolmate of Fields said that Fields would draw swastikas and talk about "loving Hitler" as early as middle school Fields's high school history teacher said that Fields was "deeply into Adolf Hitler and white supremacy."

sounds to me that the common link to these protests getting deadly is alt-right fascists getting violent.

 

[FAST6191]

From where I sit the Hong Kong peeps have something to protest about -- China very much throwing its weight around; it was never particularly easy and people playing the thorn in the PRC's side had a nasty habit of vanishing but from what I have seen the initial extradition law that kicked it off, the meddling in elections, and things since have been anything but in either the letter or spirit of Hong Kong's autonomy for the next however many years they are guaranteed it by the handover agreement (not that I would have expected it to be adhered to had Hong Kong not been inordinately richer than anywhere else in the PRC at the time).

If the US branch (there is a UK one as well which is even sillier, though illuminating on other aspects) of BLM/antifa have anything to protest about I am not seeing a clear set of anything like reasonable demands or coherent logic, or maybe there are multiple factions nominally grouped together. If I take the basic surface reading of "it's about racism" then I don't see the US as a whole, much less the police of it, as having a racism problem and certainly not a widespread, endemic and actively seeking to keep those with greater or lesser, or specific, amounts of melanin down. The problem, if there is one at all, is a poverty problem and few seem to be in a hurry to address that one, though I suppose a nice financial crash might possibly have some measure of reset value.
Whether I write it off as the usual bored studenty types having a little shout like we see I don't entirely know.

 

[osaka35]

So I admit the last thread was problematic because the scope of comparison was limited.

However, the two movements have sometimes been treated very differently in media, e.g. FOX news. So what is your view? Why?

[I personally view both protest movements as riots.]

it's called revolution. But they are very similar. Second-class citizens trying to achieve basic human rights. Revolt, uprising, revolution, protest, riots, whatever word works for you. What matters is what gets it done.

I am not seeing a clear set of anything like reasonable demands or coherent logic, or maybe there are multiple factions nominally grouped together.

There are lists of coherent, straight-forward demands that are linked to addressing the issues of systematic oppression. it's like "do these very obvious things and start to fix the problem". I can try and find some resources for you if you'd like.

 

[UltraDolphinRevolution]

yeah man, totally not a deadly rally when a white nationalist supporter runs over people with a car.

That´s my point. Deaths (and destruction) caused by BLM and HK rioters are downplayed (let´s remember the amazing video of a reporter and his Naked Gun: "Nothing to see here" moment).

The truth is, it is not about objectivity but whether sb supports a movement or not.

 

[morvoran]

The HK protests are people fighting for their basic human/civil rights and not be forced under communist rule.
The BLM fiasco is about burning impoverished communities to take away basic human/civil rights and force everyone under communist rule.

The HK protests are mostly peaceful except when the Chinese government became violent.
The Black Lies Matter tantrum is mostly just attacking the government and destroying property.

The HK protest were about pushing for positive change that benefited all citizens of HK.
The BLM just want to destroy.

If someone really can't see how the HK protest were for good and the BLM destruction are for whining little participation trophy winners looking to destroy, then you may need to seek professional help.

 

[Deleted User]

The HK protests are people fighting for their basic human/civil rights and not be forced under communist rule.
The BLM fiasco is about burning impoverished communities to take away basic human/civil rights and force everyone under communist rule.

The HK protests are mostly peaceful except when the Chinese government became violent.
The Black Lies Matter tantrum is mostly just attacking the government and destroying property.

The HK protest were about pushing for positive change that benefited all citizens of HK.
The BLM just want to destroy.

If someone really can't see how the HK protest were for good and the BLM destruction are for whining little participation trophy winners looking to destroy, then you may need to seek professional help.

was going to type something out but this x2

 

[UltraDolphinRevolution]

The HK protests are mostly peaceful except when the Chinese government became violent.

The government in Beijing did nothing for a very long time. Probably to sway opinions about the riots (see Trump today). The HK police (which is known for its professionalism) also behaved very reserved.

 

[Soulsilve2010]

Neither one are riots, the rioters are people who came to take advantage of things so they could burn and loot and some of them are probably paid to make either movement look bad.

 

[morvoran]

The government in Beijing did nothing for a very long time. Probably to sway opinions about the riots (see Trump today). The HK police (which is known for its professionalism) also behaved very reserved.

I'm not sure how things work in China, but in the US, the federal government has no jurisdiction in the individual states unless the governor of that state asks for federal involvement (except in extreme situations). Trump wasn't watching and waiting to see how the riots turned out. He was waiting for the liberal panty waste governors/mayors to ask for assistance.

From what I could tell, it seems that the protest in HK went on too long and the government decided to take violent action to stop the peaceful protesting.

The pedocrats here are just sitting back and watching their citizens' being killed and property destroyed by violent rioters (unless the rioting comes to their personal homes).

 

[WiiHomebrew+Snes]

both are riots, but one's a quiet riot. the other one you can feel the noize.

 

[FAST6191]

There are lists of coherent, straight-forward demands that are linked to addressing the issues of systematic oppression. it's like "do these very obvious things and start to fix the problem". I can try and find some resources for you if you'd like.

Please do.

For a start I am not sure the US has anything like systematic (or would that be systemic?) oppression with race as an underpinning in the modern world, nor for basically a whole lifetime at this point (civil rights era still within living memory but at the same time many many many years ago right now).

As far as demands
I saw some seek to apparently completely abolish the police (they used the word defund but most police won't work for free so... yeah).
Some said abolish the police and let the communities themselves police things. Because that always works so well, not to mention aren't the police already usually based somewhere there (give or take rich parts of New York).
Others say no just cut a budget. Not sure what good that does but hey.
Others say cut budget and give the cash over to social services of some flavour.
Others say leave the budget alone (possibly even unarse some more money) and do better training. What that training consists of varies as well (crowd control, mental health stuff, whatever "bias training" might be).
Some seemed to want to go further still and seek a block on immigration and customs enforcement from operating within given city limits. Others elsewhere demanded all federal law enforcement leave the city.
Some wanted to break the police unions.
Some seemed to want various flavours of prison reform, varying from simple reform to release all people of a given skin colour, to more nuanced things varying with crime levels.
Some of the people wandering around yelling at night appeared to want to have people give up their houses because gentrification and historical ownership demographics in a given area.
Some sought the whole reparations thing for the however many times it has been now, and if the civil rights era is a distant memory then nobody alive today was ever a slave (and actually it would be surprising if anybody alive today had ever met one -- you are already talking extreme human life lengths for two people and a chance meeting even then).
Some sought their particular school curriculum be taught, assuming the leaked materials were accurate they were hardly without contentious aspects.
Some seemed to want various politicians or police heads to step down.
Some seem to want to push that prejudice+power narrative/definition, others stick with the generally accepted definitions.
Others apparently just wanted to protest statistics; seems black people are more likely to catch a police bullet if you look simply at population breakdown, adjust for crime rates and things change rather, go in for bad shoots and things look even different again.

https://en.as.com/en/2020/06/12/other_sports/1591985502_814148.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/protest-dc-george-floyd-police-reform/612748/
https://nypost.com/2020/08/14/seattle-blm-protesters-demand-white-people-give-up-their-homes/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53466718

Even if I assumed such things had some merit then several of those are mutually conflicting (defunding police and giving them extra funding being rather at odds with each other, as is extra training and instead kicking things to "community" policing). There are some commonalities in theme, though "do these very obvious things" is a bit harder to qualify.
About as close as it gets is "police reform is a good thing" but as again there are mutually incompatible interpretations of what that might mean and then we are immediately bogged down.