Conspiracy, tricks of Russia and the local problem: protests in the United States through the eyes of our immigrants

The death of African-American George Floyd provoked a wave of protests in the United States, which is in no way declining. Rallies calling to draw attention to police brutality and prejudice against blacks often escalate into clashes with the police and are accompanied by looting and robberies. Writes about it "Focus".

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Protests in the United States actively comment on immigrants from Ukraine, Russia and other countries of Eastern Europe. At the same time, many of them try to evaluate the events from the point of view of an independent observer, trying to explain what is happening to their friends and relatives outside the United States.

Locals say that the behavior of real American cops is different from cinematic idealized images. Cases of police arbitrariness occur much more often than information leaks out of the local media. Only when there are too many such cases, a precedent is created and they talk about it for some time, discuss on talk shows and, perhaps, even several of those guilty are punished. And the arsons and robberies that are shown on TV are only part of what is happening in the United States and do not convey the essence of the problem.

Daria, now a resident of Amherst (Massachusetts), said that “they don’t always join the police and the army for good reasons.” Some become police officers “for lack of fish,” some try to join at least some kind of power, and some want to shoot at the “bad guys.” And anyone can become a victim of police brutality. For example, in 2016, police shot and killed 26-year-old David Shaver, a white Texas resident, who carelessly tried to pull up his shorts when police asked him to follow their orders.

He was shot by machine gun fire, video from the breast cameras of police officers was hidden for several years, both cops did not suffer any punishment. Moreover, Philip Brailsford, who shot David, received a life-long pension and all legal expenses.

On the subject: 'She went out for bread - got to protest': how a Russian-speaking immigrant witnessed the riots

“The Brailsford camera video is about insecurity. You don’t have to show false papers in a store to be brutally strangled for the unproven theft of a pack of cigarettes, like Floyd. A family man without a criminal history or criminal inclinations, relaxing in his room, may find himself in a similar situation and receive 5 bullets out of nowhere. The only difference is that, as a percentage, unarmed blacks are about 6 times more likely to be shot. I perfectly understand the protesters - not looters who cheerfully joined the flow, but those who were driven to the limit by the news. Nobody wants to be Floyd or Shaver. And such desires unite. And if no one moves at the state level, then excuse me,” notes Daria.

Protests also reinforce the economic stratification of American society on a racial basis.

“There is a middle-class America that believes that the police are on their side, that know that they can turn to the police for help, or just come up and chat on the street. And there is another America. Poorer, more criminal. Her interactions with the police are often not so pleasant. Yes, among African Americans the percentage of such people is higher, and yes, many police officers get used to such statistics and behave accordingly,” пишет blogger under the nickname levik.

He notes that when another manifestation of police lawlessness occurs, different people perceive them differently, and this reaction largely depends on the initial attitude towards the police.

“I think this is because it is easier for the white population to forgive “their” police. Not the individual guilty policeman, but the entire police force in general. It's easier to think that a few bad guys are tarnishing the reputations of hundreds of thousands. It is much more difficult to maintain sympathy for the police for people who obviously see them as a repressive force. After all, there are police officers like that, even in New York, where the department’s policy is very actively aimed at ensuring that the police represent the multinational city as much as possible,” he believes.

At the same time, local residents clearly share peaceful protesters against police arbitrariness and racism, radical political groups of different directions and ordinary marauders, who are engaged in open robbery under the guise of mass actions. So user, writing On Facebook, under the nickname Zhenya Lin, five main groups are identified:

1. Peaceful protesters against police brutality, including most of the Black Lives Matter movement.
2. The radical wing of the Black Lives Matter, who believe that the time of peaceful protests is over and the only way to change the situation is to use violent methods, especially against the police.
3. Marauders and pogromists: who, using protests, have the goal of robbing shops, destroying and setting fire to cars and buildings.
4. Leftist radical movements: their goal is to incite arbitrariness, to destroy the system using extremely violent methods. They are the catalysts of chaos.
5. White supremacists and far-right radical groups. They are catalysts for chaos. To simplify a little, their goal is “anti-advertising” for any movement for civil rights of African Americans against police brutality, as well as race riots in the United States.

He also notes that it is not worthwhile to unconditionally trust the media, again bloggers who are now trying to raise their own ratings by posting “bright” videos and pictures, and television journalists. Because when describing what is happening in the United States, they focus on one aspect or a specific narrative of events.

“Those who do this are either careless, or irresponsible, or do not understand that they are saying racist things, or have the goal of showing a deliberately distorted picture for the sake of some benefit for themselves or the target audience,” Lin sums up.

Another blogger and New York City tour guide, Denis Fraevich, writes that New York has often become the epicenter of unrest due to its multinational population, divided into communities and areas. The city has always had a high crime rate, and the sound of sirens has become a common sound on the streets. There's always something going on here, often illegal, but such massive riots haven't happened in a very long time. Denis noted that now the most popular product in the Big Apple is plywood, which is used to clog doors and display windows in an attempt to protect stores from looters.

If peaceful protests really take place fairly calmly, except that the streets are blocked, then with the onset of darkness robbers appear on the streets who, taking advantage of police inaction, trash everything in their path. Detain a few. Those who show direct aggression against law enforcement. Central streets with expensive shops suffer the most.

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Initially, the protests in New York really took place peacefully, but there was always someone in the crowd who started throwing stones at the police or setting fire to cars, after which everything ended with a hassle. Now in the city robberies continue, interspersed with relatively peaceful protests, and some of the residents - the one that could - left the city altogether.

But what is especially interesting is the classification of looters who have already developed their own rules of behavior. Now they are called “looters” (from the English looter (“robber”), looting (“robbery, pogrom”).

At the same time, as Fraevich writes, there is also a division among the “Luthers”. Some of them are organized into groups with their own intelligence, drivers and “security officials” who break and smash shop windows, take out all the contents and load them into cars. The second ones are “walkers”. They simply move in small groups and attack everything that comes to hand. Also, according to Fraevich’s classification, there are “adrenaline junkies” who simply like pogroms and are also not averse to profiting.

“They are not organized at all and just walk around the city, gathering in large crowds, and are always ready to join any commotion, be it setting cars on fire, attacking cops, or robbing stores. The main thing is that there is a large crowd. Alone, they are cowardly and immediately run away. They can easily rob those who have already robbed a store and take what they like. For people like me, they pose the greatest danger, since there are a lot of them, and they are often left without prey, so they can attack ordinary people. The reason will be your camera and the fact that you allegedly filmed them,” he writes.

Denis notes that all three categories have no relation to the protesters and simply hide behind them for the sake of profit, justifying their actions allegedly with justice and retribution. In fact, they are ordinary criminals posing as ideological fighters. Unfortunately, all the informational noise is now around them and from this it begins to seem that there are only robberies around, and the United States is on the verge of a disaster.

“To put it mildly, this is not true. The problem, without a doubt, is huge, but even in New York, for example, all this is still of a very local nature, and outside the city, life has not changed at all,” says the blogger and notes that against the backdrop of the chaos, there are people including Russian speakers who justify the robberies or consider what is happening to be an insignificant event - they say, the “looters” will rob and calm down. But, as practice shows, every night they get a taste and will not be limited only to expensive boutiques in SoHo and Manhattan.

There is enough among Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking residents of the United States those who believe that protests, robberies and chaos are a kind of conspiracy directed against the one to whom they sympathize more and for whom they voted in the recent elections. They do not consider the root cause at all or ignore it, which may be evidence that they did not delve into the subtleties of American life and consider many problems far-fetched.

There are also attempts to justify the policeman by denigrating the deceased. This is often observed - sins are attributed to the victim, demonized, hinting that she received what she deserved. This popular opinion often meets with powerful counterargument.

On the subject: 3 facts that explain why protesters in the USA are dissatisfied: rallies against racism began in Europe

There are those who admit that the situation in the United States was aggravated to the limit and the death of George Floyd simply served as a catalyst. Another problem is that Trump is unable to extinguish this conflict; he even managed to ruin his speech from the steps of a church because security officers had previously dispersed the protesters with rubber bullets. The protests have gotten out of control, escalated into criminality, and the police’s attempts to reason with their raging compatriots, even through peaceful means, lead nowhere. Those who previously called for peaceful rallies continue to attend them, but peaceful appeals have no effect on the “looters” and aggressive instigators.

At the same time, against the backdrop of ongoing protests and general tension that can be felt when studying the American segment of social networks, Russian- and Ukrainian-language public pages are somewhat passive. People continue to look “among their own” for manicurists, lawyers, ask where to buy a kitten and ask to recommend a good bank. They discuss what is happening in the United States only in the context of a threat to their own existence. And so some of them followed the example of the Americans - they created civilian patrols and became concerned about buying weapons. The reasons that prompted people to protest are of little interest to them.

In Ukraine, opinions were also divided. “Hand of Moscow”, of course, is being considered among other options. Like, even if the protests began because of Floyd’s death, now they are definitely being fueled by the Russian Federation.

There are also those who are inclined to believe that the situation was heating up and finally “exploded.” However, there are those who believe that what is happening in the United States is the business of the Americans, and Ukrainians should deal with their own problems.

The appearance of military and armed patrols on the streets of the same Los Angeles and the introduction of curfews somewhat tempered the ardor of the protesters. But in a number of states, the rallies continue and the curfew had no effect on those who initially deliberately violated the law. And the main problem remains unresolved: the brutality of some police officers and the often biased attitude towards the black population. The death of George Floyd stirred up deep problems, but so far there are no obvious attempts to solve them.

As ForumDaily wrote earlier:

• On May 27, George Floyd, an African American from Minneapolis, died after a Minneapolis police officer strangled him with a knee. Officer Derek Chauvin was fired and charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter; three other officers also lost their jobs. Protests and riots subsequently eruptedand in Minneapolis and across the country.
• The Minnesota state governor said protests over the death of African-American George Floyd, spanning dozens of US cities, are already not related to murder, but provoked by visiting radicals.
• Protests in Minneapolis sharply intensified in the evening of May 27when city police took action in response to looted and burned shops in the city, as well as fatal shooting at a protest venue.
• May 31 truck drove into a crowd of protesters in Minneapolis (Minnesota). At the wheel of a car was a citizen of the United States, presumably of Ukrainian origin, Bogdan Vechirko. He was arrested, but on June 2 released from custody awaiting further investigation. Eventually no charges were brought against him.
• About 40 cities, including Los Angeles, Miami, Detroit, and Philadelphia, banned street demonstrations after dark. Texas and Virginia Governors introduced a state of emergency.
• In connection with protests in US cities embassies of Ukraine and Russia asked their citizenslocated in the United States, maintain order and avoid crowds wherever possible and comply with security measures.
• June 1, Donald Trump enacted the law of 1807, allowing him send armed forces to shocked states in connection with the death of George Floyd.
• According to the official autopsy of George Floyd, his death was caused by mechanical asphyxia and should be considered violent.
• As of 4 June victims of mass protests in the United States, at least 11 people have become.
• All police officers involved in the death of George Floyd arrested. They face up to 40 years in prison.
• More 10 people were arrested during protestscondemning racism and police brutality over the death of George Floyd.

Read also on ForumDaily:

'She went out for bread - got to the protest': how a Russian-speaking immigrant witnessed the riots

Pentagon, generals and former presidents condemn Trump's reaction to US protests

The story repeats itself: how New York survived the night of nightmares and looting 40 years ago

Will insurance cover car damage during protests and riots?

3 facts that explain why protesters in the USA are dissatisfied: rallies against racism began in Europe

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