Whatt's Happening There?

It's difficult to know what is happening with the protests in Portland and Seattle right now. There are news reports but one doesn't know how selective they are.

The tribalism in us pushes us to believe the best about the groups we support and the worst about the groups we oppose or those groups that oppose our groups. But honesty and fairness fights against such selectivity.

So I don't know all that is happening in the protests in Portland and Seattle. I don't how much violence that the protesters are engaged in. I hope it would be none at all. But even the news reports have talked about some protesters throwing things at police, some protesters have fired weapons or pointed guns at people. And that is tragic.

Conservative authoritarians will only focus on that which supports law enforcement--even the law enforcement of the federal makeshift police force in Portland. Why? Because the actual presence of violence, regardless of how far away, is frightening to many of them. They picture violence happening there as a catalyst for violence happening near them. And it is because they are looking for reasons not to have to believe BLM"s messages. Thus, they look for any discrediting information and then over generalize.

Protests are like debates. Just as the winner of the debate is not any of the participants, but the audience; the same applies to protests. The effectiveness of a protest depends on how influential it was on the general public when news reports about the protest is seen by the public.

For the protests in Portland, that parents and veterans have volunteered to be human shields between the protesters and the police says something positive about protests. That there have been fires, destruction of property, and people injured says a lot negative about them to the people that need to pay the most attention to the protests: those in the public who oppose the protests and think that their messages are wrong. In addition, we have a President who wants nothing more than to stoke their fears.

I can't say much about the protests in Seattle except that they are reported to be a reaction to the presence of DHS agents in Portland.

How I miss the days of Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC. King preached against both physical violence and the violence of a person's spirit that is expressed with hateful words. We need someone and some groups to take their place if the general public is going to be influenced by those seeking good and just changes.