“Revolution is messy”.
That’s the title of a recent tweet by Andy Ngo, and a
slogan on one of the pictures you can click to expand.
The signs explain “dress scary” with black faces and
masks in protests (most of all in Portland). Protesters don’t want to be
identifiable. In fact, in one protest in
Washington DC, they got restaurant owners to ask patrons not to film them. But, when you are in a public place, anyone
has a right to film you (although not “indecently”). This would comport with various solidarity efforts
to raise bail money for then.
In a few cases, protesters have trespassed onto outdoor
diners and harassed those who don’t join them with solidarity, and business
owners have allowed it. This has not
happened to me, but I have only had a very few sit-down dining experiences
(always outdoors) since the pandemic started. (In DC, by the way, they will
take your cell number for contact tracing.)
Another sign (in the tweet) explains the “violence”. They say they won’t target small businesses, except
those associated with anti-poor or anti-black causes, like “gentrification”. It says mistakes might happen, but then,
something like, “we will do a GoFundMe for you”.
Imagine how humiliating it would be for someone like
me to have a “gofundme”. Oh, I am supposed
to ‘get over that’.
Andy Ngo also reports graffiti signs on a building near
the police station calling for his assassination (picture in a tweet). It is not stated how long they have been there, but they might well have been put up repeatedly for some time.
I had not been aware of this until yesterday. But a few weeks ago a friend (on the ground
in Portland at the time) asked me to delete immediately a tweet that connected
him to Andy gratuitously. (I did so, and this is the only time something like
this has happened.) But at the time of
that tweet, I was not aware of any such graffiti signs. (I have not been to Portland or Seattle myself
during the pandemic; in fact, I have not flown since October 2019 and canceled
a trip to LA in late February out of COVID fears).
Andy Ngo had been controversial before, and got “milkshaked”
and injured, I believe in 2019. Most of
his writings appear merely “conservative” to me. He is a gay person of color who does not
comply with intersectional expectations – and explains his family history of
expropriation by Communist Vietnam after 1975.
A Sept. 3, 2019 article (Robby Soave) in Reason
explains some of the controversy. Andy Ngo seems to refute identarian self-concept entirely.
I am skeptical of journalists and vloggers attributing
all the unrest to “Black Lives Matter”, as the violence may be outside of the
movement platform (although when you look at the BLM website, for all its recruiting,
it doesn’t really have detailed policy proposals, other than maybe reparations.) Many popular social media personalities promoted
their trademark and black blank rectangle, sometimes even bail funds, only later
to be embarrassed at the scale of the unrest. But a major street in Washington DC will get
the name.
I also must caution persons, I do not allow people do
demand “quid pro quos” from me, that I must support them actively to be allowed
to be online for example, which seems like a danger in the coming environment, especially
if Biden wins and is not careful. The idea would have been unheard of a year
ago, until the pandemic started. Corporate America’s willingness to go along
with this is shocking. The mainstream
does not understand the extralegal indignation of the extreme Left, on the
theory it has nothing to lose.
Wikipedia embed of bank building in Portland, click
for attribution.
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