Mother fucker, open your eyes. BLM burned and looted small businesses like animals and Antifa joined them. The cops were powerless and that emboldened the rioters on January 6th. I would Have shot all of them and no more riots. You are one stupid dude if you believe that the protests were peaceful. They were antagonistic and violent.
How much research have you done on the subject? I understand you have watched right wing tv focused solely on looting and vandalism.
Can you refute this study?
AN OVERWHELMINGLY PEACEFUL MOVEMENT
The vast majority of demonstration events associated with the BLM movement are non-violent (see map below). In more than 93% of all demonstrations connected to the movement, demonstrators have not engaged in violence or destructive activity. Peaceful protests are reported in over 2,400 distinct locations around the country. Violent demonstrations,4 meanwhile, have been limited to fewer than 220 locations ā under 10% of the areas that experienced peaceful protests. In many urban areas like Portland, Oregon, for example, which has seen sustained unrest since Floydās killing, violent demonstrations are largely confined to specific blocks, rather than dispersed throughout the city (
CNN, 1 September 2020).
Demonstrations & Political Violence in America: New Data for Summer 2020 | ACLED
Yet, despite data indicating that demonstrations associated with the BLM movement are overwhelmingly peaceful, one recent poll suggested that 42% of respondents believe āmost protesters [associated with the BLM movement] are trying to incite violence or destroy propertyā (
FiveThirtyEight, 5 June 2020). This is in line with the Civiqs tracking poll which finds that ānet approval for the Black Lives Matter movement peaked back on June 3 [the week following the killing of George Floyd when riots first began to be reported] and has fallen sharply sinceā (
USA Today, 31 August 2020;
Civiqs, 29 August 2020).
Research from the University of Washington indicates that this disparity stems from political orientation and biased media framing (
Washington Post, 24 August 2020), such as disproportionate coverage of violent demonstrations (
Business Insider, 11 June 2020; Poynter, 25 June 2020). Groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) have documented organized disinformation campaigns aimed at spreading a ādeliberate mischaracterization of groups or movements [involved in the protests], such as portraying activists who support Black Lives Matter as violent extremists or claiming that antifa is a terrorist organization coordinated or manipulated by nebulous external forcesā (
ADL, 2020). These disinformation campaigns may be contributing to the decline in public support for the BLM movement after the initial increase following Floydās killing, especially amongst the white population (
USA Today, 31 August 2020;
Civiqs, 30 August 2020a,
30 August 2020b). This waning support also comes as the Trump administration recently shifted its ālaw and orderā messaging to target local Democratic Party politicians from urban areas, particularly on the campaign trail (
NPR, 27 August 2020).
Despite the media focus on looting and vandalism, however, there is little evidence to suggest that demonstrators have engaged in widespread violence. In some cases where demonstrations did turn violent, there are reports of agents provocateurs ā or infiltrators ā instigating the violence.
