PROTESTS VS. RIOTS
​
By AVA DISALVO
In this article I plan to not only state my thoughts on riots vs protests, but explain what they mean legally and why it is important that when reporting news, we properly characterize each as what they are.
By definition, a protest is ‘a statement or action expressing disapproval or objection to something’. What transpired during the months where BLM was expressed greatly in 2020 were largely protests.
Regardless of whether or not they remained peaceful, they (the vast majority) were quite literally not riots until an act of violence itself was committed. People described breaking and destroying businesses as a protest, and people holding up a sign on the side of the road as a riot or incitement.
What occurred a few weeks ago during the storming of the Capitol was also a protest; it did not become an act of treason or terror until people began actually entering the grounds of the Capitol and destroying property.
A lot of these events have made me reflect upon just how unwilling sides are to hear an opposition or allow disagreement.
Blue Lives vs. Black Lives dominated political discussion and discourse, until the Capitol was stormed. Then, all of a sudden, the same people who were shunning BLM protesters were applauding criminals, and the same people who advocated for protests became intolerant once conservatives were the ones who acted upon their ideas.
In each and every scenario that has occurred politically involving protests, they were mischaracterized, whether that be the downplaying of actions that would fit the definition of a riot, or, the overexpression of an event that only became violent due to outside sources. No matter what side of the political spectrum one sits on, it is incredibly dishonest and disingenuous to paint events in which people are expressing their beliefs as a riot, especially when not everyone who went to said event intended to commit an act of violence (or actively participated).
I find it incredibly odd and distasteful that news nowadays is so openly dishonest.
Slandering people who attended the Trump Rally as terrorists despite them individually having no involvement with the entering of the Capitol, as well as making it out to seem that people who simply attended BLM protests were doing so with the intention of inciting violence or disturbing the peace.
Because of the negative connotations the word ‘riot’ holds, people need to be more careful when describing what is and isn't a protest. It seems that people want to decide whether or not something is a riot based off of whether or not they support the cause that incited the action in the first place.
At the end of the day, riot is still defined as something violent that disturbs peace, which is admittedly a broad definition, but to use that term as a way to attack the rights of protestors is wrong and should receive more negative attention so people aren't socially shunned out of advocating for their core beliefs, be it Republican, Democrat, or apolitical in terms of sides.