The establishment pretends to be inspired by nonviolent protest while opposing what protesters demand (defund & abolish police). They want folks to march in circles & not damage or disrupt anything. That’s all. They‘re not committed to dismantling racist policies or institutions.

They condemn Trump’s escalation of force w/ one side of their mouths while justifying it w/ the other. And no where in their talking points do they address the actual concerns & policy demands of those who engage in nonviolent protest. They just focus on policing how ppl protest.

This is what I mean when I say the establishment has learned how to weaponize the concept of nonviolence against protesters while never actually embracing the tenets of nonviolence.

Their argument is that protesters must be nonviolent—by THEIR definition of the term, in which tearing down a fence constitutes “violence”—otherwise police brutality is justified. Let’s also not forget police are arresting & brutalizing nonviolent protesters this whole time too.

So all of their bloviating about “nonviolent” “peaceful” protest is not actually about nonviolence as a philosophy—which again is why they support the military-prison industrial complex & oppose the aims of the protests—but about legitimizing the use of force by the police.

It’s a very underhanded & calculated maneuver on their part.

They want to deflect from the central issue that sparked mass protests in the first place. Do they support reallocating resources from police & prisons to oppressed communities? If not, they’re in no position to tell people how to protest for their lives.

Where do you see the establishment calling for a moratorium on the arrests of anyone who protests nonviolently? Where do you see them calling for a ban on the use of teargas? You don’t, b/c they’re only pretending to support nonviolent protests when they really oppose all of it.