Original: https://x.com/wokal_distance/status/1915233075455521020 (thread)
Archive: https://archive.is/PRj1h
This snuck by me yesterday.
In case you have been living under a rock, disparate impact has long been a tool which the feds use to come in institutionalize rules that favor minorities over whites, and has been used to turn school districts into the worst sort of lord of the flies institutions you can imagine. How it worked was that the mere appearance of disparate impact on any minority by policy was de facto assumed to be racist, and draw federal investigations. I can think of two school districts that were utterly destroyed by this, Minneapolis and Orange County, FL. Blacks now run the halls in Minneapolis violently assaulting people at will, and they know they won't face any discipline because of the policies the school district had to institute at the point of Federal agent guns. Treyvon Martin was suspended from school after being caught with stolen jewelry, instead of expelled and referred to police for indictment.
It is my hope that this EO starts us on the long road to overturning Griggs vs Duke Power.
Slate star codex/Scott alexander has a good essay on why. https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/
It's got nothing to do with timing, there was another death right around the same time as Garner (the Brown-Fergeson thing) which did get some protests and traction. Not quite as big as Floyd, but pretty big. But Eric didn't. Why then if not timing? It's precisely because Gardner was sympathetic and because and even those on the right would agree 'yeah that's a bit much' that his cause was mostly useless to the left. You can't signal to your insane commie ingroup how 'virtuous' you are for supporting Eric Garner, because everyone already agrees it was unfair and maybe worth protesting over, even fox news is muttering that it was too much, poor Eric. This makes it useless for its true purpose, sorting and signalling. It only gets tacked-on to the Brown case and Ferguson riots as 'another example' of police brutality to help lend it credibility, as a rhetorical attack. Same way that Breonna Taylor was used in the Floyd discussions (not that she was perfectly innocent, but that case is far muddier, more akin to Garner's)
And then along comes Floyd. Now here is a useful display of my leftist credentials. Only an true believer would look at this piece of shit and care. So he's perfect. That's why Floyd kicked off, precisely because he was scum.
Look at the incentives, and remember they are evil and seeking to signal to other sick degenerates how evil they are. That's why Brown and Floyd became big things while Garner didn't. Garner never could no matter when it happened. It had to be someone like Floyd. Yes timing will affect the magnitude of the rioting, but it can never be over a case like Garner's.
I might suggest there's a little more to that theory: The context within the local area. By the time St. Floyd ascended, there had been a few other recent and controversial deaths by police in or near Minneapolis. This coming on top of the big rise of 'black lives matter' nationally.
Jamar Clark, killed after going after ambulance workers and stealing an officer's gun when they attempted to detain him.
Philandro Castile, failed to listen to officer's instruction to stop while pulling out a gun (presumed to merely present to officer since admitting to owning with permit).
Justine Damond, tried to get attention of officers in vehicle and drew fire from Somali officer shooting past his partner to the opposite window.
This interview from Slate has an adequate overview of how things progressed.
I would add that the initial video of Floyd made it seem like Chauvin’s actions were totally egregious. People were incensed over how long he kneeled 'on' Floyd, how bystanders essentially pleaded for mercy to deaf ears. Other officers just standing by (more or less).
Against your point, there were a number of conservatives who initially sympathized with Floyd. People didn't know about the criminal history (or the fentanyl I think) until after the worst rioting. Only the fake $20 bill, which arguably shouldn't have been a death sentence