Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #JusticeForJacobBlake
Most recents (5)
A useful way to think about how protests work is a cascade model. Before a standing ovation, folks look around to see what others are doing. Signals from media + elites (people further up), neighbors (seated near you) & local norms all shape whether people stand up.
Protests help draw attention to an issue. Media may cover it, amplifying underlying concern in larger public. Individuals & groups watching from sidelines then weigh whether to support, ignore or oppose the cause. So, athletes can play a powerful role.
Research by @EricaChenoweth & Maria Stephan finds a key reason nonviolent protest tends to be more effective than violent resistance is potential local, national & international allies are more likely to align with a movement perceived as largely peaceful. amazon.com/Why-Civil-Resi…
In 1960s, celebrities were an important force to draw media attention to civil rights protests. Now, it also seems very likely that the athlete strike is helping to move media coverage of #JusticeforJacobBlake protests from a crime script to a claim for rights narrative.
For anyone interested, here’s more on why it matters whether media coverage frames protests more in terms of “rights” or “riots”.
In short, violence helps increase media attention and, as leading social movement scholar @DanielGillion has found, helps create a sense of urgency among elected officials and in the broader public.
Facts: A Black man was shot by a Kenosha police officer and is now paralyzed from the waist down. And people demanding #JusticeForJacobBlake have been gunned down—two are dead—after white militias were allowed by the Kenosha Police to roam city streets.
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Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that armed people had been patrolling the city’s streets in recent nights, but he did not know if the shooter was among them. “They’re a militia,” Beth said. “They’re like a vigilante group.”
The investigation that proceeds from this point will have to ask and answer many questions. One of them is this: When an armed vigilante group is “patrolling the city’s streets” at a tense and perilous moment, shouldn’t we all recognize that this heightens the tension and peril?
The police continue to demonstrate that they are unwilling to protect the community without shooting Black people. Even when de-escalating violence, Black people are targeted by officers with guns because the culture of policing in America is rooted in anti-Blackness and... (1/6)
the dehumanization of Black people. Jacob Blake was leading a community intervention—a non-violent response to conflict—yet the police chose to inflict violence in an everyday situation rather than treating Jacob Blake like the mediator and peacekeeper that he is. (2/6)
No child’s innocence should be stolen by the trauma of helplessly watching their caretaker and superhero be shot nearly to death in the street by the state. This use of deadly force is the reason we treat police violence as gun violence and strengthens the movement to... (3/6)
Drink water, be water 🖤
@PolitiQuill is down at the park! Free postcards with information and stamps provided. I wrote one to a local library asking for more Black authors and overall inclusivity in their selections. 
We are marching and in solidarity with Wisconsin tonight #justiceforjacobblake
