Walk with us

I didn’t listen to NPR this afternoon (though I did this morning). I decided it would all be protest news and I would rather continue work in the garage while the sun was shining and the air was rather cool (high of 70F today). Even so there is protest news to share.

The vice nasty guy tweeted:

We believe in law and order in this Country. We condemn violence against property or persons. We will always stand for the right of Americans to peacefully protest and let their voices be heard.

I noticed, as did others, that property was put before people. Cara Zelaya tweeted a thread about the phrase “law and order.”

Let's have a little history lesson about the dog-whistle that is the phrase "law and order." When people in positions of power spout the phrase "law and order" you can be pretty confident that they are white-supremacists.

Nixon used it in his 1968 campaign to reassure white people after the riots after the death of MLK. Reagan used it before then in California. He got it from the 1953 movie of that name in which he starred.

In 1964 Goldwater ran against that year’s Civil Rights Act. He lost badly. Nixon still wanted to appeal to the racists of the south – the Southern Strategy – so used this dog whistle.

And that's pretty much why The South is still considered Republican territory. Because the GOP continues to run candidates in that area of the country that do coded-appeals to folks who are racist!

The next time you hear someone say "law and order" perk your ears up and remember that that phrase has a long history of racism, hatred, and bigotry attached to it. They don't want peace, they want white supremacy.

Activist Tamika Mallory was with social justice advocates at a news conference in Minneapolis. First, she pushed back against the claim that most cops are great, there’s just a few bad apples (the phrase that gets used a lot). Said Mallory:

This is a coordinated activity happening across this nation, and so we are in a state of emergency. Black people are dying in a state of emergency. We can not look at this as an isolated incident.

Then concluded with:

Don’t talk to us about looting. Y’all are the looters. America has looted Black people. America looted the Native Americans when they first came here. So looting is what you do. We learned it from you. … The violence was what we learned from you. So if you want us to do better, than damnit you do better.

This is how you do it. In sharp contrast to police around the country who appear to be contributing to the violence… In Flint, Michigan protesters marched to Police Headquarters. The police had on riot gear. The protesters sat to show they were non-violent. Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson, who is white, took off his helmet, set down his batons, took off his riot gear, and asked “What do you need from the police?”

They answered, “Walk with us.” He did.

No one arrested. No one hurt. No damage. The way it’s supposed to be. Thank you, sir.