I've done a lot of  while working to broaden the lens our larger Streetsblog network deploys over the last 8+yrs. But a treatise declaring cars are more violent & more of a threat than the white supremacists behind the protests might be the grossest thing I've seen on the site. https://twitter.com/StreetsblogUSA/status/1251182737148518404

Almost immediately, white supremacy is handily dispensed and the pressing question is said to be one of how non-drivers can be heard over all the street clogging and blocking of ambulances.

A prominent right-winger who was once banned from twitter for defending confederate soldiers & likening “Drag Queen Storytime” to a baby-sitting session w/ Caligula is validated as a pundit suggesting the protest reflected the real America elitists ignore.

And, we are told, the worst part of it all was THE CARS THEMSELVES, not what the confederate flags or the swastikas represented. I mean, just ask anyone who remembers the death of Heather Heyer, amirite?

We should fear people with cars and their "sheer horsepower" drowning out the voices of people without cars. Because the danger is their emissions and not their support for a white supremacist agenda.

BRB. I need to go stab my eyes out.

I'm at a loss for words.

But apparently opening streets to walking and biking will solve the confederate flag problem...

The fact that car protests have been used by radical folks here to call out elected officials and demand rent forgiveness, eviction moratoriums, and housing for the homeless aside... https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-01/coronavirus-renter-relief-eric-garcetti-getty-house-protest

It is not a "peaceful" protest if white supremacists show up anywhere. White supremacy is inherently violent. It is astounding to me that that has been so painstakingly erased because car culture.

It's an approach that reminds me of a lengthy back and forth I got into with Strong Towns over the piece they posted on the unrest in Ferguson. It effectively erased race by pointing to stroads and the narrowness of the sidewalks as the problem. https://twitter.com/sahrasulaiman/status/1117133434214735872

What I said then applies here as well. The erasure of context and of race allowed for open streets to be presented as a counterweight to people waving confederate flags.

Unfortunately, I'm not surprised to see this analysis. When we had an opening at USA, I pushed very hard for Streetsblog to do some meditation as a network on the extent to which it did/did not reflect the cities it wrote about. It did not go well. https://twitter.com/sahrasulaiman/status/1176344697851105280

Instead, I've watched the network double down on its narrow lens. So here I am on twitter, having pulled a Newsom-esque west coast secession in my mind (bc I am truly grateful for my west coast colleagues) and venting my frustrations in lengthy threads. https://twitter.com/sahrasulaiman/status/1251174997743120385

This thread got a little more attention than I expected. Welcome new followers! Be forewarned that my twitter is less and more stuff like this: https://la.streetsblog.org/2019/08/15/nipsey-hussle-understood-cities-better-than-you-why-didnt-you-know-who-he-was/