Fucking hell. Anyone in the media going to condemn this violent counter protest? No?
This clear and obvious discrepancy in coverage and language reminds me of something a socialist and linguist on a program I was listening to that has stuck with me back during the coverage of Hillary and Trump and than again during Kavanaugh.
She was explaining how the way the media and American society writ large perpetuates systemic inequality through the culture in part, by the ways in which we frame the same actions or behaviors based on who is doing them.
For white men that get angry, forceful, and emotional with their language the natural response is for the media and people to immediately take that as a cue that what they are saying should be heard and given thoughtful consideration, humanize, and offer fair minded explantations.
When woman do it they are framed as shrill and irrational, and that whatever they are articulating is questionable because their anger signals their emotions overriding their logic.
When black and brown people do it they are framed as scary and violent and lectured about how they are expressing their anger wrong. That they must meet arbitrary benchmarks of assuaging white fears before they are allowed to have their opinions considered.
When protests challenging the status quo of white Judeo-Christian supremacy or American political consensus they are immediately viewed with skepticism and marginalized, while those that act worse in their behavior toward those protestors get their actions filtered thru the lens that the angry white men above do. No one is saying that the violent acts of anti-protestors call into question if all supporters of Israel's war are racists, or that their violence or violent rhetoric delegitimizes the whole. If it's acknowledged at all it's often explicitly spoken in isolationist terms and/or immediately provided some level of excuse or qualification.
