The problem with Black Lives Matter is all the blacks.
Now the Summer of Soros passes into what will be the romantic historiography of antifa, a lurid tale of fascists and tyrants, numinous negroes dying gloriously, of federal jackboots gassing–gassing!–peaceful protesters, of a rainbow underground where the genderfluid allied with Black Panthers.
We can expect the media to write that tale for them–and it’s a reasonable assumption the media would like that to be the end of it, with antifa standing down, dispersing, being absorbed into the establishment. The same people cheering the mob’s help in deposing Trump–if they have any sense despite all appearances–should be eying warily their erstwhile troops on one side and the decrepit, tottering Biden on the other.
Antifa for its part casts about for new targets and opportunities. Its newfound prestige and acceptance will present its own problems perhaps–will antifa restrain itself to retain this respectability, or disdain it and pursue ever-more radical projects and tactics? Or will we get the worst of all worlds, wherein they do that and the media continues to advocate on their behalf?
I wonder if it has occurred to antifa leadership: they would be very well rid of BLM and black racial activists; it may be a necessity for their cause. Our present revolutionaries are undergoing the same disillusioning experience their grandparents experienced in the sixties before the grift and buffoonery of their black allies, with the pressure to suppress this reality more intense now. By virtue of their insistence anti-black “racism” be at the center of all concern in perpetuity–they’ve gone to that well over and over because it works–and due to the racial diversity now of their movement, they have painted themselves into a corner.
Antifa’s revolutionary grandparents could go off and continue their assault on decency and common sense on behalf of blacks without any blacks getting in the way. Now there’s no room left–not enough whites and too many black, brown and other; present-day revolutionaries must hide things from their black allies and steal away just to think.
An industrious white insurrectionist can have any project seized at any time on behalf of “centering black voices” and watch it fall apart as he’s forced to turn it over to childish blacks complaining about hair products and soliciting reparations via cash apps.
All who oppose antifa should appreciate the limiting effect of this dynamic that may eventually sink their whole enterprise.
Some successful initiatives, inspiring for the antifa/BLM side, fell right away to the rapine of black activists and thugs. Antifa’s Riot Ribs and Wall of Moms franchises were taken over, by black thugs and activists respectively, though that distinction becomes less clear the closer you look, after they piled up donations and looked to go national. Comically resembling smash-and-grabs, the blacks took them, and their donations, over and promptly let them die. BLM security, dominated by black thugs, operated with impunity and produced the two most appalling violent incidents of summer, the beating of Adam Haner and the execution of Aaron Danielson. A gang of black and brown children terrorized the zone during the depths of it all, mobbing various weak people they found–and thereby clearing the area of homeless.
The homeless of downtown Portland were hardest hit by the chaos. No one paid them any mind as they went about rioting that often swept through streets where they were camped out–for they are all over. Once I recall seeing someone sleeping on the sidewalk, or trying to sleep, as rioters and police scuffled around them, oblivious. Once a group of antifa kids with shields made a show of putting up a wall around a man curled up on the sidewalk–who seemed unperturbed laying there–as if to protect him from police.
The virtual occupation of the area around the Justice Center brought in hosts of thugs and knuckleheads at the same time it attracted, at first, homeless crazies drawn to the excitement and others drawn to the free food–the aforementioned Riot Ribs which was operating a fleet of grills before the blacks shut it down. But over time the homeless disappeared from the scene, I suspect having worn out their welcome with the thugs and antifa alike–who managed to do what the city could never manage, clearing out a years-long homeless presence in front of the evil, now shuttered, 7/11 on Taylor and 4th.
One night at the height of antifa’s autonomy downtown I sat on a stub wall with a cancerous panhandler smoking. He complained about being hungry.
“Aren’t you getting any of those ribs?”
“Hell no. I haven’t got any of that shit.” He said resentfully.
“Are these people giving you money?” I asked. He laughed.
“These fuckers?” A young pale-skinned black man walked past.
“Hey brother you got–”
“I don’t have any money.” He cut him off before he could finish. The panhandler grinned and me, nodding his head as if to say “you see?”
Difficult homeless people in the zone could expect none of the customary indulgence they receive from average Portlanders from callous blacks and self righteous antifa. As for the police, they were almost entirely absent. The incident below took place over a couple of hours before a squad car and ambulance showed up to extricate the man–across the street and one block over from the police station:
But as antifa looks for new targets and causes, the city’s resumption of “sweeps” clearing out homeless encampments–long overdue–is just the sort of thing they need to keep the momentum going. That it doesn’t involve listening to black people whine about how they’re not doing enough for black people is a bonus; indeed, as any cause not specifically for black people is certain to draw no black people, these actions must feel like little breathers for white antifa.
There is a company that does the dirty work of cleaning up the filth left behind by homeless encampments, and naturally antifa can’t have that:
After announcing a gathering in southeast Portland, antifa marched to Rapid Response Bio Clean & smashed up the place. The business has a contract w/the city to clean biohazards at homeless encampments. #Antifa want the cleaning to stop, saying it displaces the homeless. pic.twitter.com/6h4N3H6wrS
— Andy Ngô (@MrAndyNgo) November 13, 2020
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Antifa is expanding into targeting private businesses who contract with the police and are getting away with it so far.
The tawdry tale of Riot Ribs:
untethered 