Here's why the language of "riot" vs "protest" vs "uprising" matters:

When Black Americans and other marginalized groups RESPOND to white supremacist violence, they are often LABELED rioters to undermine the true reasons why they are JUSTIFIABLY demanding ACCOUNTABILITY.

Historically, "riots" have actually been started by white people who felt threatened by Black people's desire to breathe and exist in public.

I wrote about one example, the East St. Louis "Race Riots" in 1917, for @TeenVogue here: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-story-behind-the-east-st-louis-race-riots

When white Americans fight one another after a sports game, flipping cars and causing property damage because their team lost (or won), that's a riot. Super Bowl LII was one example of that. I cover it here for @TeenVogue: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/super-bowl-lii-destruction-in-philadelphia-was-a-white-riot

Protest is a tool used by those who have been oppressed. These are groups that are often distanced from power. They protest as a means of disruption bc the traditional means of social and political participation have been insufficient in helping their conditions.

I explain how white Americans frequently misuse the language and tactics of protest for @TeenVogue here: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/boycotting-protest-powerful-colin-kaepernick-serena-williams-nike-naomi-osaka

What has happened with the language around movements is that many people who don't support them, specifically white Americans, label Black-led movements "riots" as a means to make them sound criminal and non-normative. This language justifies violence against.

Protest is protected under the US Constitution's free speech clause. Rioting is not. Thus, by labeling all insurrection from Black communities "rioting," counter-agents of these liberation struggles turn public opinion against them and invite police action.

Black organizers, specifically those associated with #BlackLivesMatter , successfully branded Ferguson as an uprising thus intervening in ideas that it was abt senseless aggression and destruction. The language of an "uprising" gave the struggle direction (against the state).

What we call mass movements, especially when they are Black-led, matters.

Black organizers, community members, and comrades are engaging in an *uprising* against the conditions which led to George Floyd's murder and the murders of so many other Black people.

Absolutely. I discuss pogroms in my article about the East St. Louis "Race Riots." Racial genocide is not a "race riot." White Americans senselessly killing Black people for existing is not a "race riot." It is mob violence, lynching, and murder. https://twitter.com/AritraPsych/status/1266439335882047488