The vast majority of these protesters are expressly non-violent. They camp to bring public attention to injustice. Some stay past curfew, deliberately practicing civil disobedience. They anticipate being gassed, maced, shoved, dragged, and otherwise abused by police -- and do so without retaliation.
Of course, there can be other actors with their own agendas. Some looting. Some rioting. However, it does us a disservice to blindly clump those practicing civil disobedience with those practicing violence, or to write about the former as if they were enacting violence, when the opposite is true.
> Some stay past curfew, deliberately practicing civil disobedience.
Civil disobedience is a term that I don't equate to many of the violent actions that they are engaging in.
The protesters that are peaceful early in the evening are not the ones being arrested, pepper sprayed, etc...
The protesters that stay past midnight and assault the police are.
The notion that the "vast majority of protests are peaceful" is irrelevant, because the police actions we are talking about are against the violent protesters.
The vast majority of these protesters are expressly non-violent. They camp to bring public attention to injustice. Some stay past curfew, deliberately practicing civil disobedience. They anticipate being gassed, maced, shoved, dragged, and otherwise abused by police -- and do so without retaliation.
Of course, there can be other actors with their own agendas. Some looting. Some rioting. However, it does us a disservice to blindly clump those practicing civil disobedience with those practicing violence, or to write about the former as if they were enacting violence, when the opposite is true.