#but i don't actually dislike the reporter even though all the cops do

[gillianthecat]

My best beloved, Reporter Im Gyu Soek, is back! 🥰

[qqueenofhades]

NGL I will never, EVER, understand the Blue Lives Matter crowd. Like, aside from Black Lives Matter opening up important discussions about antiblackness and police brutality worldwide--aside from the many videos and news reports of officers abusing their power, aside from studies warning of neonazis and white supremacists infiltrating police forces, and aside the women who are coming forward about being sexually assaulted and raped by officers 1)

2) (RIP Sarah Everard), aside from the many officers at January 6 and the officers who let those people in in the first place, aside from the current and former cops who have come forward to admit there is a problem(TM)... They're just going to ignore all of that because *checks notes* they dislike the 7% of Black Lives Matter protests that became violent? Really? Ignoring that BLM began in 2013 as a hashtag and had peaceful protests in 2014 that went nowhere, and that the movement didn't

3) gain steam until 2016 when SOME protests became more violent (kind of proving the point about peaceful protests getting little done, honestly...), the Blue Lives Matter folks are just going to ignore a very real, glaring problem because they don't like how it's currently being protested? WTH???

Honestly, if you think about it, it's not confusing or hard to understand at all. The police are the guardians and enforcers of institutional white supremacy, the BLM protests challenge that paradigm and call out the cops instead of treating them like heroes, and the Blue Lives crowd, also being racists who want said institutional white supremacy to be maintained at all costs, are therefore profoundly threatened by it. There is no Black Lives Matter protest that would ever be peaceful and respectable enough for them; just look at how they lost their absolute goddamn minds at Colin Kaepernick quietly kneeling during the national anthem. They refuse to entertain any challenge whatsoever, and the minority of protests that do turn violent are great fuel for their Scary Black People Are Coming To Loot Your Nice White Suburbs fear-mongering. So yeah. For them, it's win-win.

Anyway, like all other institutions of white supremacy and settler colonialism, the police have enjoyed automatic social deference and valorisation as the "protectors of communities" (read: white communities) for so long that any criticism at all makes them scream about Oppression! Even though, as both the American police and the British police in particular (aside from just the Sarah Everard case, the Met in London and other UK police forces are in special measures because their culture has gotten so terrible) are now recognised as safe havens for white supremacists because they are so overtly dedicated to upholding that paradigm and punishing everyone who doesn't fit into it. That is why white supremacists are drawn to law enforcement, because pretty much every Western country will give them license to harass and persecute minorities under the pretense of "maintaining law and order." Because coincidentally, it turns out that the Bad Lawbreakers are always people of color! Who knew?

As I have said before, the Blue Lives and associated people don't want racism to be protested because a) they don't think there is actually any racism to protest, and b) if there IS racism (you can't prove it!), they don't think there is anything wrong with it. So it's not the techniques or tactics of said protests that they really object to; as I said, they thoroughly villainized Kaepernick for the most quiet and respectful protest you could imagine. They just don't think any challenge to their power, and their entrenched belief of law enforcement as heroism, is acceptable at all. Because they want to be able to do the same thing, and often do with little to no consequence (a la Kyle Rittenhouse). So yeah.

This is why it's especially illuminating to see the January 6 rioters and their defenders twisting themselves into knots to avoid admitting the obvious fact that the Trumpers attacked the police, who they clearly expected to be their natural allies, and who were far more lenient with them than they would have been with a similarly violent crowd that happened to be brown. Because the privilege of white supremacy is to literally attack the goddamn Capitol, intend to murder the government and launch a fascist coup, and have all the people who claim to be "defenders of law and order" bending over backward to make excuses for you. Because in this case, the fact that they actually attacked (and killed!) multiple cops is less important than the fact that these cops, despite their privileged institutional position in the armed white supremacist hierarchy, were deemed insufficiently white supremacist to be worthy of armed white supremacist protection. As I have said before, this is why white supremacy destroys even its most ardent supporters, as well as obviously and most violently its victims.

In short, when considering the roots of any social problem or culture issue in America, it's probably accurate to refer to the below handy meme:

I mean. That pretty much sums it up.