I'll clarify because that was perhaps too flippant on my part. There are episodes from the 2020 protests which match the intensity of past American riots at times. But for how widespread and recurring the protests were, they had a lower density of and a lower conversion to violence.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_u...

There certainly are a lot! I was only living in an affected city during the '20 protests, so that's all I feel confident commenting on.

Ah I see your edit now. I understand what you're getting at, you're right.

This comment reeks of low effort finger pointing, I hadn’t thought I would have to read these juvenile takes on HN. Would you feel the same way if 200 people had died? 2000? For the record, I have nothing but support for the cause they were protesting, policing in America is hugely broken and there are well-documented racial elements to that failure, but I don’t think I’m alone in wishing demonstrations themselves hadn’t been so destructive.

Try making this comment again without using the R word. Are you of the opinion that the protests in Seattle are immune from criticism? I had a friend who closed her store after it was looted twice. Where does she fit into your distressingly simple model?

I was living next to CHOP during the whole ordeal. If you don’t have on the ground experience, I genuinely don’t think your opinion is worth anything here, I’m sorry.

It is maybe the cause you describe well:

> policing in America is hugely broken and there are well-documented racial elements to that failure,

vs

> it spread due to men wearing straw hats past the unofficial date that was deemed socially acceptable,

that made your comparison a bit triggering, and even if you did not mean it, not totally incomprehensible?

Those two also fail to compare in other dimensions, e.g. size, so not sure if worth it at all..

I'm not the one who originally made the comparison and I completely agree; the two are so different they _shouldn't_ be compared.

Regardless of how one feels about the motives or the methods, I think it's safe to say it was a fairly watershed moment for the US whose importance shouldn't be downplayed.

Can I say that my goal was not to compare the two in an absolutist way.

There is a narrative that developed about the 2020 protests that they were categorically different from the America's past because some of them spilled over into violent episodes. The talk was borderline existential regarding them as something new in American society. They were frequently unfavorably compared to the "peaceful" civil rights protests of the 60s.

But those protests were only peaceful in the small cherry-picked set that progressive historians and non-violence aligned activists have succeeded in turning into the canonical story of America. The civil rights movement in fact did have episodes of ambiguous violence. Critics at the time cited these incidents as reasons the protests should stop or wait. King references these critics directly in the Letter from the Birmingham Jail. It's barely buried history.

What's more, the protests occured amongst a back drop of constant deadly violence and struggle over all kinds of grievance and issues. Forget the risk of an antifa punching you in the jaw. There were people with deadly weapons, ready to do deadly violence or at least advocating it. From The Weather Underground to The Black Panthers to MOVE to biker gangs and on.

But the popular narrative wishes to ignor all this. How many times during 202 did I hear some boomer say, "look what we got done with civil rights without violence." But they have imbibed the Forest Gumpification of history. This myth is used to create an impossible standard, according to which, any incidental violence immediately discredits change.

I point to The Straw Hats because the are the most blatant tell to the law that America has a 'peaceful' past. That people are now somehow more unreasonable, easily triggered to violence and with thinner justification for their demands.

You've made me feel completely alienated from the world.