A leftist think tank VP and New York Times contributor mocked dozens of murder victims by claiming that the damage of this summer’s surge of Black Lives Matter riots was limited to “smashing the window of a Jamba Juice.”
“Violently overrunning police to storm the seat of government during a joint session of Congress in a bid to overturn the result of a presidential election is categorically different from smashing the window of a Jamba Juice during a BLM protest. So f*cking stop it, right now,” Will Wilkinson, who works for the Niskanen Center, wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
Violently overrunning police to storm the seat of government during a joint session of congress in a bid to overturn the result of a presidential election is categorically different from smashing the window of a Jamba Juice during a BLM protest. So f*cking stop it, right now.
— Will Wilkinson (@willwilkinson) January 7, 2021
The "I'm just serious about condemning violence whenever it occurs" crowd is in fact only serious about obscuring massive, critical moral and political distinctions.
— Will Wilkinson (@willwilkinson) January 7, 2021
Wilkinson’s comments do not stand alone. Corporate media journalists, politicians, and others used the mob’s entrance into the capitol on Wednesday to justify this summer’s BLM riots.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama took to Twitter on Thursday to claim that “this summer’s Black Lives Matter protests were an overwhelmingly peaceful movement…encouraging millions to re-examine their own assumptions and behavior.” In truth, 95 percent of the riots through September were linked to BLM.
— Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) January 7, 2021
CNN also ran an article on Thursday claiming that “in many cities, including the nation’s capital, police met protesters with tear gas, violence and arrests,” failing to acknowledge the destruction and rioting that occurred.
“Rioters breached US Capitol security on Wednesday. This was the police response when it was Black protesters on DC streets last year,” the headline read.
Armed members of the DC National Guard stood at the Lincoln Memorial last June during a peaceful protest after George Floyd's death.
During Wednesday's pro-Trump riot, a mob had already made it inside the Capitol before the DC National Guard was activated https://t.co/0QOuSuEE7w
— CNN (@CNN) January 7, 2021
President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris joined in on Thursday, alleging that BLM rioters would have or did receive different treatment from law enforcement than the people at the capitol.
“No one can tell me that if it had been a group of Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, they wouldn’t have been treated very very differently,” Biden said in an address Thursday afternoon. “We saw a clear failure to carry out equal justice.”
US President-elect Joe Biden says that if it had been Black Lives Matter protesting yesterday, "they would have been treated very differently than the mob of thugs that stormed the Capitol"
Latest: https://t.co/N4ccyue25z pic.twitter.com/RLcIKel84D
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) January 7, 2021
“We witnessed two systems of justice when we saw one that let extremists storm the United States Capitol and another that released tear gas on peaceful protesters last summer. …We know this is unacceptable. We know we should be better than this,” Harris said shortly after.
.@KamalaHarris: "We witnessed two systems of justice when we saw one that let extremists storm the United States Capitol, and another that released tear gas on peaceful protesters last summer…We know this is unacceptable. We know we should be better than this." pic.twitter.com/Uc1FC8aZKg
— CSPAN (@cspan) January 7, 2021
Despite these claims that this summer’s protests were “mostly peaceful” and fought by massive police presence and law enforcement crackdown, cities all around the United States were quickly plagued with looting, violence, arson, vandalism, attacks on police, and damage to public property.
As of August, an estimated 30 protestors and bystanders ranging in age from 14 to 77 lost their lives in the chaos largely linked to BLM that media outlets labeled as “peaceful demonstrations that intensified.”
Victims of the violence included a police captain, a former football player, a federal officer, a photographer, business owners, teens, and others. A majority of their deaths were caused by shootings, but a few were caused by being hit or dragged by cars. One news report documented that a body was found burned to death in the remains of a Minneapolis pawn shop set on fire by rioters.
By the end of the summer, the destruction caused by people claiming to be protesting in the name of racial justice totaled more than an estimated $2 billion in damages.
