Apparently a lot of you discovered your inner cop last night. Got yourself badges, "video evidence" and everything...

Disempower "provocateurs" by not co-signing that whatever they may have done makes protests "look bad." Fires happen in almost every uprising and white people sure don't deserve all the credit. Looting, too.

People have burned shit when they're angry since we discovered fire...

And people take shit when they can. That's fine, too.

It doesn't delegitimize anything.

But "provocateurs" that do exist only retain their usefulness - their ability to send us spinning in our own, ad hoc twitter investigations - if we accept the premise that fires or looting somehow delegitimize grief, anger and rage.

I don't think they do. Do you?

There's solidarity in the streets. And liberals. And opportunists. There are people who make others around them uncomfortable. Clumsy adventurists who can't read the crowd around them, too. And the street is the best place to handle all of them.

The one example from AutoZone seems like it *was* handled.

Accept as a given that some participate in uprisings for their own ends; police provocateurs, social media gadflies, politicians and other opportunists are plentiful and will try to advance their agendas.

If we want to disempower these types, I think we (who are not there) can help best with material aid for people we *do* support *and* amplifying the narratives they're expressing about what they want and what their own actions mean.

Minneapolis didn't "burn their own community." It looks, to me, like they burned chains and looted big box retail outlets, none of which a "community" make (except to police and their so-called "community policing" stakeholder meetings.)

Or did cops burn everything? Or did cops do all the brave resistance? Or "Outside Agitators?" Or did a clumsy, white adventurist who should *obviously* do a lot better at not sticking out than the guy in a painter's respirator with a HUGE BLACK umbrella do everything himself?

If you did ID this one dude, what then? If he's a cop, the cops know. So what next? ID everyone who broke a window? Anyone who threw a rock? Anyone who stepped inside Target? Sounds bad. And for why?

It seems to me like people there who were uncomfortable with dude did what they felt they needed to do in the moment. What left is there for us to do?

100% lock some cops were up to shady shit. They always are. But we give them their power to confuse the narrative. And I don't think that's a good thing.

One thing I rarely-if-ever see is demands of blanket ammesty for protesters (including arsonists, looters, rock throwers, etc...) Maybe if we support *all the people* who are facing increased repression that way, we can help disempower provocateurs in the future?

I think if we collectively insisted on #ammesty for anyone the police snatch for participating in these protests - in whatever way they participate - we'd do a lot more to undermine police provocateurs.

We'd say, "we don't care who started that fire" to any cops who do set one.

People have fought for and won amnesty before. And that would better serve all the faces caught on video these last two days than finding out who one dipshit with a hammer was, wouldn't it?

Anyway, Ryan Grim is an asshole.