Minnesota Burning

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his food writing website Yonder and Home. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew's Heard Tell SubStack for free here:

Related Post Roulette

17 Responses

  1. Truth says:

    “Rioting has broken out”. That’s a funny way to describe police firing tear gas and rubber bullets into a peaceful crowd to provoke a riot, or sending agents provocateur out to break windows and start fires and then blaming it on the protesters. Or to describe police false-arresting a CNN reporter and camera crew who had already moved to the place they were ordered to go, seemingly to prevent the media from recording whatever the police were up to in the wee hours of the morning.Report

    • Philip H in reply to Truth says:

      yeah – I actually castigated NBC News on their facebook page for saying protests had erupted because that word creates a sense that it wasn’t legitimate. Words matter, and the older I get the more I find journalists really don’t know how to use words.Report

  2. North says:

    Yeah, I’m living peripherally to the riots. The businesses around here have all been boarded up and my home is in a condo over a CVS so there have been a lot of break ins. We watched the liquor store across the street get broken into and it was a group of young, mostly white men doing it. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the police are false flagging this but this much I am quite convinced of- there’re elements who don’t give a shit about Floyd’s death but who are very much enjoying the suspension of police activity that the protests are causing. The anarchists and the looters and, of course, the execrable imbeciles of Antifa are happy to bust down stores and set fires while sheltering behind the protests. They’re like a swarm of gadflies that follow a stampeding herd. They’re not of the herd but wherever the herd goes they show up and swarm like the parasites they are.
    Very little of this deserves to be laid at the protesters feet. It’s enraging the way the right eagerly shoves all the misbehavior these fishers cause under the blanket definition of left wingers.Report

    • InMD in reply to North says:

      The same kind of thing happened in Baltimore. There were plenty of peaceful protests, then there were those who used them as an opportunity.

      It’s really unfortunate it goes that way since most of the places where these incidents arise need investment and jobs more than anything else. All the talk about riots being the voice of the unheard or whatever is counter-productive, well intentioned as it may be.Report

  3. Chip Daniels says:

    I am in the heart of the riots in downtown LA.
    Last night the drug store on the ground floor of my building was broken into an partly looted, and a burning dumpster pushed in the middle of the street in front of our door.

    The protests in the afternoon were a largely mixed AA and white crowd, but as the night wore on the crowd became younger and whiter until around 10 it was almost exclusively young white males.
    The atmosphere was one of freaky holiday, and there was a core of the young men who were obviously coordinating with each other in playing cat and mouse with the cops.

    It was also obvious that neither side was really wanting a direct confrontation. The cops would sweep down the street, and the crowd would retreat, then stop and sort or replay that scene from 2001 where the apes stand across a divide and hoot and wave their arms at each other.
    The the only real goal of the crowd was to strike a pose , flip off the cops, maybe light a trash can on fire or break a window, then go home and post about it on social media.

    This is radically different than the 1992 riots, where there was a darker anger in the air. In that one, people were a lot more willing to go the next step in violent confrontation or burning buildings.Report

    • North in reply to Chip Daniels says:

      It’s probably because the police are much more suppressed in Minneapolis but there’s no small number of buildings the looting, posing, douche-bags have destroyed here.Report

  4. Zac Black says:

    Boy, if you hate looting, you’re gonna be SO MAD when you find out how capitalism works.Report

  5. greginak says:

    Everything seems like a shitshow because a lot of is. But i’ve some places where cops are marching with protesters for justice. Not enough places…yet….but it is a sign of the changes we need and that there are good people out there.Report

  6. Jaybird says:

    If you’re wondering “What has Biden said to step up to this historic moment?”

    Report