There is a long history of dismissive linguistic and narrative framings of sociopolitical protests, both deliberate and inadvertent.
Today, certain representations of the George Floyd protests delegitimize them and distract from their driving philosophy. This has manifested in the disproportionate attention paid to lootings, sensationalised clashes and the burning of a Target rather than of protestors chanting and peacefully kneeling. An article by The Atlantic highlighted the obscuring vocabulary of “chaos” rife in the coverage of the protests by the mass media. In a speech, Trump disparaged the “riots” and their subversion of “law and order.”
A point that Joe Zizek brought up in his lecture on the French Revolution is apt here. He shed light on the politically loaded and pejorative origins of crowd psychology which dismisses protesting crowds as irrational “mobs.” Instead, he emphasised the important revisionist endeavour to recognise the political crowd as a “collection of rational actors” and to identify the “intelligible rationale” driving collective political action.
Accordingly, the current protests are not irrational but a meaningful expression of outrage at the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and countless others and the history of state-sanctioned violence against black lives. The historical context and main mantras (“Justice for George Floyd”, “Black Lives Matter”, “I Can’t Breathe”, “No Justice, No Peace”) of the protests clearly show that they are driven by an “intelligible rationale” that regards justice and the need to dismantle a corrupt and deadly institution. Additionally, it is important to note how much of this protest has been conducted peacefully. Much of the violence has been performed by police, who have been using batons, tear gas, pepper spray and rubber bullets.
However, an “intelligible rationale” can be detected even in the occasionally aggressive manifestations of this sociopolitical endeavour, such as lootings and fires. Peaceful opposition to American systems of oppression and to police brutality specifically have been going on since at least the Civil Rights Movement. However, these have come to little avail, and in fact Colin Kaepernick’s act of simply kneeling in protest of police brutality was met with outrage. As Kellie Carter Jackson of The Atlantic succinctly puts it, “there is no form of black protest that white supremacy will sanction.”
“Law and order” are misleading terms and often the agents of oppression. Actions outside of the law, including violence and land occupation, are rational responses of the oppressed against an oppressive system. This is a reality with historical substantiation; the French Revolution, the American Revolution and the Haitian Revolution are all examples of uprisings against oppression that involved, and were arguably contingent upon, the use of violence as a means of change. Indeed, violence may even be critical in rendering the purpose of the protests legible and loud where peaceful protest has been ignored.
We can observe a similar rationale in the occupation of the land at Ihumātao. While the occupation is technically illegal, violating rules of private property, the legal reinforcement of Fletcher’s ownership of the land is inherently oppressive, ignoring the injustice of the historical confiscation of the land and representing how the historical injustice against Māori through raupatu is enshrined in the law.
As we know, the way conflict is contextualised is of utmost importance, determining the contemporary and historical consciousness around it. Recognising the logic of the protests obliges us to be critical of how they are being framed by the media and deliberate in our own word choice. In application, we could avoid words like “riot” which misconstrue the depth of what is occuring. An article I have linked below elaborates on the best vocabulary for what is occurring, including terms like “uprising”, “rebellion” and “demonstration.” Similarly, it is most accurate and respectful to engage in the vocabulary those at Ihumātao use of “protectors” rather than “protestors” and “occupation” rather than “protest.”
Through this we acknowledge the rationale behind, and do a little to support, the fight against injustice.
Nice application of the concept of intelligible rationale to the current BLM protests! I think you missed an opportunity to analyse the rationale behind the tearing down of statues, but your discussion of the (notably rare) looting and arson are great too, and your link to the occupation at Ihumātao
is succinctly ties these concepts to events closer to home.
I think analyzing the logic that motivates so many people to get out onto the streets and protest in hope of a better future as you’re doing here is really valuable. As you say, it’s important to recognize that, even in the cases where violence on the part of protesters has occurred, it merely functions as an outlet for rage that has been building up for decades at the unjust treatment of entire ethnic groups in every part of society, when peaceful protest has resulted in little substantial change. Furthermore, firmly placing such actions within their context allows us to understand the true significance of the contemporary BLM movement – although the overt discrimination of the past may be technically illegal, old attitudes die hard. We can and must strive to do better.
You also make a great point about how the way we talk about certain subjects inherently make value statements of them. Words have power. Terming the protests as riots wrongly focuses the discussion around the injustice of damage done to innocent businesses and bystanders, when the real conversation was always about how discrimination manifests itself in the criminal justice, law enforcement and economic systems, and that prejudicial beliefs continue to have vast, negative and unjust implications for the way minority groups live their lives.