“For the first few days it seemed that Minneapolis would follo | Listen Up Tucson

“For the first few days it seemed that Minneapolis would follow suit: a riot in a single city, to be met with the old routine: lament the stubborn “tensions” that wrack this “complex” country—then try to pin the violence on notorious “outside agitators.” Videos had already surfaced of white militants smashing glass. There were other videos, of course—the ransacked Lake Street Target; brute assaults by the police; clouds of tear gas blotting out entire city blocks—that revealed the robust presence of black people in the street. But fantasy proved irresistible. Was this a plot by anarchists, or the radical right-wing fringe? Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor, announced that 80 percent of the rioters had arrived from out of town. No matter that this was a total falsehood, to be rescinded the following day.”