#Portland 2 hours ago https://twitter.com/retconmike/status/1297432555277283328

#Portland Saturday https://twitter.com/IwriteOK/status/1297344718787891200

"The economy of slavery wasn’t relegated to the South: it crossed state lines, and even states with low slave-holding populations were profiting from the labor of the enslaved. From tobacco cultivation in Virginia to shipbuilding in Rhode Island, industries throughout the states both supported, and were supported by, slavery. By 1850, 80% of American exports were the product of slave labor. The estimated value of enslaved people increased 500% between 1790 and 1860, from $200 million to around $3.059 billion. Slavery’s profitability far outweighed the moral outrage it engendered… The American South before the Civil War was the low-wage—actually, the no-wage—anchor of the first "

https://regenerationmag.org/understanding-racial-capitalism/

Also these protest conspiracy theories always end up boiling down to some really racist, paternalistic ideas about black protesters being of one hivemind and that leaving bricks as bait implies that nobody would wanna throw bricks unless they were manipulated into doing it by leaving bricks as bait, implying that people aren't intelligent enough to make their own conscious decisions to throw or not throw bricks. And that by extension covers the whole outside agitator and provocateurs narrative too (so BIPOC rioters are just being "tricked" into rioting because some white dude tricked them into doing it? Come on) it insults people's intelligence when we spread these rumors and conspiracies and it robs them of their agency, and you start to treat people as being one hivemind. That's not how it is in reality. As someone who has lived through 3 anti police protests/uprisings in my city (Minneapolis) since I moved here years and years ago, this ain't it chief.

From the @StrikeForce2020 chat