(Black)Mayhem

The Right, and Trump supporters especially, are using the Floyd, Blake and other protests as evidence that America is becoming unhinged, as if public mayhem is a 21st century invention.

Actually, in the U.S., it’s just a white invention (and privilege.)

In fact, and as usual, they are incensed that non-whites and their supporters are “stepping out” to express their outrage over extrajudicial police shootings and killings.

But when white folk plundered and murdered in the infamous massacres in Tulsa, Wilmington, and elsewhere it was just the price paid by blacks for success at the ballot box and the bank.

Blacks were admonished to take their medicine and get over it.

And how about the thousands of public lynchings of blacks, each one usually a rowdy extravaganza where mayhem was the order of the day?

Finally, the Revolutionary period was characterized by white mobs careening around Boston, literally tearing down buildings while assaulting British officials, riding them on rails and tar and feathering.

Public violence and the threat of it is an American tradition.

It’s fine when Trump’s white supremacists and militias run amok and invade public spaces but somehow becomes the end of the country when others adopt the same tactics.

Law enforcement has incrementally adopted a militarized culture where unnecessary escalation is the order of the day.

They also consistently engage in grossly excessive violence often targeted at minorities.

Then, they are flummoxed when the powder keg ignites.

They shouldn’t be.