From June 13. The uprising has been far too large for the far-left to have played that big of a role. The right-wing has greatly exaggerated the role of the far-left in all of this, and left-wing has exaggerated the role of the far-right (whose presence has been even smaller than that of the far-left). And the mainstream media, left and right, has exaggerated the role of race in the uprising. Yes, a big part of the rebellion has been about racial disparities when it comes to police crimes and terrorism against civilians. Nothing wrong with pointing that out. And the perspective of the liberal middle class and conventionally left sectors of the protest movement may be limited to a focus on “racial justice.”

It makes perfect sense that the majority of the most militant lumpen proletarian insurrectionists (i.e. the ones who are actually torching enemy military bases, etc.) have been from minority ethnic communities. But the uprising is about more than race per se. It’s also a class-based insurgency, with the lumpenproletariat acting as the class vanguard, that is engaged in direct attacks on ruling class targets and on the state. Media propagandists have to focus on the racial component of the uprising because they can’t admit that class actually exists much less that there is any problem with the state itself.

By Isaac Stanley-Becker 

Washington Post