(I apologize in advance if talking about the podcast is discouraged. I don't know if that's a joke or if most hexbears feel that way). But anyway, next month marks the two-year anniversary of George Floyd's awful murder. Listening to the show in the summer of 2020, and later reading some stray commentary on this site, it seemed like the podcast kind of whiffed it on the protests. But idk, is that fair to say? I believe they participated in some marches in NYC, but I also remember Matt saying that "defund the police" was dead-on-arrival as a slogan, because cops will always be around as long as capitalism exists. I also remember there being a pretty rancid take about "working class" cops in a Taibbi episode, as well as an episode that dunked on a racial sensitivity/workplace training book. Fair enough about the capitalism opinion, and the book, which was no doubt written by a rich neolib that lacked any material analysis. I understand that CTH is a news commentary/comedy/dirtbag show co-hosted by white people, so it's not going to be the best resource on racial theory. I also understand that a big part of CTH is entertainment. But I'm curious if you have thoughts about Chapo's reaction to the 2020 protests. And thanks for sharing them.

  • spectre [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    These were people with more time and money than anyone else and had the luxury of zipping around from protest to protest kvetching everything to their personal neuroses, demanding stupid shit like starting “conversations” with the cops to try to

    I remember watching Robert Evans' stream of the first couple nights of the Portlantd protests. Leading a crowd of 15k high energy protests to the police HQ and then shushing them and calming them down so that you can shout through the fence with your megaphone, asking for a cop to come down and "have a dialogue". Luckily there were plenty who broke off and ratcheted things up, but what a fucking waste, they could have at least had a "peaceful" but high energy march around town or something.

    Apparently the guy with the megaphone was reportedly mixed up with a cop org (like youth outreach or something) as part of a reduced or community service sentence or something, so there were definitely suspicious ties there.

    • Quaxamilliom [comrade/them]
      ·
      2 years ago

      lmao, I remember that dollar store DMX megaphone guy from Portland. He was always there to hijack the protests when they got big enough.