In Charlottesville, we knew there were "outside forces," domestic and foreign. We proved it. We know their names, addresses, families, histories.

These things don't matter, because what is happening in Minneapolis now, and what happened in Cville then, is not about in vs. out. https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/1266741059163389952

Minneapolis, as was Charlottesville, is in a battle over the status quo, it was about the system.

These narratives serve ONLY to reinforce that system, to create a sense of "everything is fine and handleable if not for those damn outsiders."

Everything is not fine.

These narratives, along with narratives of Russian interference, internet forum operations, and so on, fail to acknowledge that uprising is an expression of rage, and with the inability to do direct harm against power, the rage is directed against symbols.

The Nazis didn't march in Charlottesville to protect a statue. The antifascists didn't come to support its removal.

But Charlottesville became a battleground because it became a stage on which greater expressions of a movement could be played out.

So, too, is Minneapolis.

People are going to Minneapolis because they are enraged at a system and that is where rage against the system is being played out.

Their grievances are many and they are not uniform.

Much like the Amy Cooper incident wasn't about Chris Cooper, this uprising is about much more than George Floyd.

The ability to draw a clean boundary around a single narrative is long past.

When we carve things into inside vs. outside, we risk falling into a trap where some grievances are legitimate while others are not. This is not the same as questioning whether it is appropriate to air some grievances on that stage.

Often times, the people most surprised by revolutions are activists, because activism is often planned, but uprisings are spontaneous eruptions of rage that has accumulated over time, often for years or decades.

The "outside agitator" response is so predictable you can practically set your clock to it. It happens every time, in every situation. And it doesn't add anything, because it fails to acknowledge the interconnectedness of our worlds and our struggles.

Moreover, we fail to recognize how much a joined uprising can be at enacting the change we want. Thousands of individual struggles do not work. Uprising is the result of the failures of thousands of individual struggles.

Furthermore, the "outside agitator" narrative is designed to ERASE the grievances of within-community agitators, who absolutely exist.

When power tries to extend its domain in this way, it attempts to claim solidarity with a community that is outraged against it, and it suppresses the voices of those inside that community who do not seek solidarity with that power.

This turns insiders into outsiders, which reinforces the structural grasp of that power on the people. This has the opposite effect of what the people want.

This is not to excuse the actions of those who go against community wishes, and one of the first goals of any solidarity effort is to hold one's self accountable to the people you are there to support.

It doesn't help anyone to burn down a pharmacy during a pandemic, or to torch a black-owned business in a black neighborhood.

But power never cared about those things to begin with, and we should view with skepticism any such sudden development of empathy and question the intent.

Moreover, we must understand that the boundaries of solidarity must include more than just expressions of rage, but also expressions of love.

If we destroy together then we must rebuild together.

These things are two sides of the same coin, and you cannot pick just one.

Remember:

It is not insider vs. outsider.

It is not black vs. white.

It is communities together with communities in a struggle of the powerless vs. the powerful.

Postscript:

2 Corinthians 2:17

"Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God."

Outsider narratives are so old that it was old when Paul wrote his letters to Corinth.

Post-postscript: it took like two hours for the fascist in the whitehouse to seize and manipulate.

We have to do better.

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1266760009872007171?s=21 https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1266760009872007171