Chasing shadows

There are individual racists and racist groups.  But how many and with what effect size?

We have a reasonable line of sight on the most significant racist groups deriving their inspiration from Critical Theory and Social Justice - most obviously Antifa and BLM and their various splinter groups.  Their presence is real, material and consequential.  Lots of lives and property being lost from their actions.

But the mainstream media and political factions keep claiming that there is a frequent and sustained white supremacist presence who are either driving their own riots or hijacking BLM protests.  

Is that true?  The claim is made frequently but no evidence is ever advanced to support it.   

I have seen reports and clips where Antifa provocateurs have hijacked BLM events turning them from protests to looting riots.  I have seen a handful of events that seemed clearly to be confrontations between BLM and neighborhood residents or ordinary citizens.  I seem to recall a single event which involved, I think Proud Boys and Antifa doing a lot of kabuki theater rather than much real violence.

But in terms of an identifiable presence, it seems like the press is chasing shadows.  I hear white-supremacist, and neo-nazi invoked frequently but almost never see them described either as individuals or groups.  Others I have heard referenced are Boogaloo and Proud Boys.  But all these seem vestigial and more likely simply opponents of the carnage and destruction of BLM/Antifa riots.  

So why do journalists keep reporting the presence of a faction for which there seems no evidence?  Politics and ideology presumably.  If you are aligned with the Democratic party and have dozens or hundreds of riots going on across the country in Democratic controlled jurisdictions, it would, of course, be very convenient for their to be an apparent conflict between rival racists such as BLM and Neo-nazis instead of what is happening now which is BLM and Antifa, supported by the DNC being the sole rioters.  

Convenient if you are a journalist wanting to support your party, but, really, you would think there would be editors somewhere who actually demand evidence for what is being claimed.

That has been my impression so far.  I keep being told that these white-supremacist groups exist and that they are a material contributor to riots and looting.  I can believe the first but there seems no evidence to support the second.  The longer you hold a view opposed to the mainstream narrative, the more you have to question your assumptions, even if the logic and evidence (or lack thereof) support your interpretation.

For the first time in a long while, I see something evidentiary reported.  From Questions remain about attacks reportedly by white supremacists during George Floyd riots by Libor Jany of the Minneapolis Star Tribune.  

As south Minneapolis was enveloped in protests, riots and looting in the wake of Floyd’s May 25 death, authorities received dozens of similar reports of racial attacks, harassment and vandalism, many of which were centered on the predominantly Black North Side. There was confusion about whether outside influence was present in the days after Floyd’s death, when state officials gave conflicting accounts of whether the suspected agitators came from the ranks of white supremacists exploiting the rage over Floyd’s death, or left-wing anarchists bent on turning the anger toward their ends of discrediting the police.

[snip]

Minneapolis Police Department spokesman John Elder said no statistics on race-related offenses were kept, but investigators had sorted through reported crimes and incidents after Floyd’s death, looking for patterns or trends.

 

“There were no such patterns,” Elder said, while adding that some cases remain open and under investigation. Of the dozens of people charged so far with crimes related to the riots, none have been publicly linked to white nationalist groups.

 There are a lot more words but the summary seems to be:

At the height of the protests, state Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington said he was dubious about reports of “crazy stuff about the Klan marching down the street,” saying that “some of it looks like it is deliberately being planted as disinformation.” A spokesman said this week that state authorities had received no new information that would suggest otherwise.

A disinformation campaign.  There's a lot of that going around in terms of these peaceful protests.  

I take it that the Minneapolis Star Tribune is no right leaning publication, so if we can take their reporting at face value, it does seem to suggest that there is little or no white supremacist angle to these riots despite the reporting.  If there were, that would show up in the arrestee data.  But no nationalist group members arrested among dozens?  Not definitive, but strongly suggesting that if they are there at the riots, it is in vanishingly small numbers.

This is related to the question of whether the riots are being led locally or from actors outside the region.  At the beginning of the riot cycle, there were many claims that the riots were not locally led but then the first arrest reports came out and most the people were local.

Over time, and across cities, it does appear to be true that a disproportionate number of arrestees are either out-of-towners and/or out-of-staters.  

Lot of questions remaining but it still seems to me that the white supremacist angle is simply not true.  It also seems to me that while the mobs and rioters are not primarily out-of-towners, that non-resident participants are at least a material contribution to violence.