BLM-antifa rioters are smashing businesses & homes in Wauwatosa, Wisc. tonight. Video by @Julio_Rosas11: pic.twitter.com/iIleGLoViy
— Andy Ngô 🏳️🌈 (@MrAndyNgo) October 8, 2020
This was a pretty funny contrast between the four black rioters who each throw one rock through a window of the Kumon math instruction office before getting bored and the methodical white Antifa rioter in black bloc garb.
From the Washington Post’s Monkey Cage column for social scientists:
Trump and others keep blaming extremist violence on these ‘radical left people.’ Here’s what our research found.
By Kerby Goff and John D. McCarthy
February 8, 2022 at 6:00 a.m. ESTAs the United States tries to tackle right-wing domestic extremism, some public figures continue to try to deflect attention instead to the left-wing faction known as antifa. Last week, former president Donald Trump again minimized the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, and then pivoted to one of his favorite targets: violent “radical left people” who had been involved in the 2020 racial justice protests. …
What they mean is white rioters, ones who obviously have some training in what to wear and how to act. The exact ideological flavor—Communist, Anarchist, whatever—can vary, but the general description of Antifa as organized, non-spontaneous white Leftist rioters is clear, unless you are trying to pettifog your way out of admitting the existence of a sizable problem in a modern America.
Similar allegations were made during the 2020 protests that followed George Floyd’s murder as scenes of burning buildings and black-clad individuals in the streets captured the attention of many. Those protests were largely nonviolent, even by historical standards
Other than the 500+ violent riots.
But Trump and conservative media outlets blamed antifa for the violence that did occur and called the group a “terrorist organization.” Some Republican lawmakers went as far as to say that antifa had “infiltrated” BLM.
In other words, Republicans like to blame black bad behavior on whites, because asking blacks to just knock it off is just not done. Similarly, Democrats blame black bad behavior on whites. The two parties differ only in which whites are blame for black looting, with the Democrats blaming FDR for redlining, but they agree that blacks are above criticism and beneath agency.
Were people who identify as “antifa” in fact involved in the 2020 racial justice protests? We looked at the data to find out.
… Antifa groups use a variety of nonviolent tactics such as “doxing” and other forms of public shaming. They also use violence to oppose fascist organizing, often responding to right-wing violence with similar tactics.
Anti-fascist ideology and tactics, like those of many of the right-wing radical and white supremacist groups they oppose, are often spread and employed outside formal organizations. However, as sociologists and journalists have documented, antifa groups provide training and tactical coordination for anti-fascist activity. The presence of antifa groups at racial justice protests is thus an important measure of anti-fascist activity within 2020’s BLM protest activity.
How we did our research
For information on antifa during the 2020 racial justice protests, we used event data from the Crowd Counting Consortium (CCC) and the Armed Conflict and Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). CCC collects information on all protest events from news reports and other media. ACLED researchers review over 2,800 sources to collect information on all demonstration events in the United States. CCC tended to undercount antifa at racial justice protests, finding only six mentions, so we supplemented it with ACLED’s findings that antifa was present at 31 demonstrations.
Obviously, that’s an absurd underestimate just for Portland alone. From ABC News on September 6, 2020:
Portland police declare riot on 100th straight night of protests as ‘fire bombs’ hurled at officers
Back to the Washington Post:
From each source, we identified demonstrations focused on racial justice and determined whether antifa or a BLM chapter attended. We then calculated the percentage that contained mention of any police injuries, crowd injuries, property destruction or arrests.
Out of nearly 14,000 racial justice protests in 2020, antifa was identified in just 37, or 0.2 percent. That would not qualify as an infiltration of the Black Lives Matter movement.
Antifa activity in racial justice protests was limited mostly to the Pacific Northwest, California and D.C. More than one-third of antifa’s protest appearances occurred in Oregon and Washington.
The single most important event in the Summer of George, the burning of the third precinct police station in Minneapolis, was heavily the work of Antifa in the sense of organized white leftist radicals.
Antifa’s presence contributed significantly to protest violence
When antifa did attend protests, the incidence of violence was extremely high compared to the level at protests it did not attend. Of the 37 racial justice protests where antifa appeared, 11 — or 30 percent — involved injuries to the crowd; when antifa did not appear, only 2 percent of the protests involved crowd injuries. With antifa present, 14 percent of protests involved injuries to police; without antifa, only 2 percent did. When antifa showed up, 27 percent of protests involved property damage; without antifa, only 4 percent did. And when antifa appeared, 30 percent of protests involved arrests, while only 7 percent of the antifa-free protests did.
The general pattern in 2020 was that black youths would use the distraction of a BLM protest to do some recreational looting. The next night, white Leftist radicals would pour in from all over the region and then things would get really heavy. Antifa are experts at harassing the police while getting favorable media coverage. Meanwhile, blacks would continue to do fun black rioting while the white crazies occupied the cops.
In other words, antifa appearances at racial justice protests greatly increased the risk of violence.
I was reporting that back in May 2020, but late is better than never when you have Jeff Bezos’s billions at your disposal. From iSteve on May 29, 2020:
iSteve commenter Dave Pinsen writes:
Looks like a Target/Police Precinct dichotomy, with the crowd looting the stores mostly black, and the crowd invading the police precinct mostly white trustafarians.
Back to the Post:
But antifa shows up primarily when it wants to counter a right-wing group’s appearance. So, were right-wing groups the real source of the violence? That’s not what our research found. We saw no difference between events in which antifa was facing off with a group such as the Proud Boys or the Three Percenters and when they were protesting unopposed.
Kerby Goff (@kerbygoff) is a PhD candidate in sociology at Penn State.
John D. McCarthy is an emeritus distinguished professor of sociology at Penn State.
