The question isn't really "how to respond to riots," as though riots are fixed, preexisting phenomena. The question is whether militarized police, protected from accountability by unions, should be provoking violence & then using the violence as pretext for more violence.
Allowing fuckstains like Tom Cotton to define the debate as "let riots run loose or fascist crackdown" already concedes too much. We've seen examples: de-escalation is possible. Protests don't need to mean violence; the vast, vast majority of protesters don't *want* violence.
Less violence is the whole f'ing point. Black people want to be able to move through the world without the threat of state violence stalking them everywhere. (Atatiana Jefferson was playing video games at home.) They want less violence, more help, more trust, more humanity.
Reactionaries don't want peace to be an option. They want to force a choice on the public: which flavor of violence do you prefer, a) rioters or b) police? Given that choice, most people will choose b. But how about c) everyone is less violent? I wager c would win handily.
We've been training police in more militaristic ways for years and now Trump is signalling to them that he views this as insurrection, as urban warfare. But Americans treating other Americans as combatants is not inevitable. It's a choice. We could choose less violence.
One point to add to this thread, which might be implicit or obvious, but I'm gonna say it anyway: the militarized, punitive method of policing is not designed to prevent or solve crimes. Ask any expert: solving & preventing crime requires shoe leather, trust, & empathy.
The point of militarized, punitive police forces is to suppress domestic dissent. The model is military forces occupying hostile countries. It is not "good policing, just a little overboard" -- it is not policing at all, really. It is state sponsored political violence. Fascism.
We could choose less violence. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
