What am I missing about the protests?

Firstly, this is n=1, but many previous times something like this happened, the victim was black, too.

Also, “the officer didn’t have a history of racism” is debatable. https://apnews.com/69beaad97dcea2dce6c2184e0f5b5e4e: “What she is certain of is how aggressive Officer Derek Chauvin became when the club hosted events that drew a mainly black clientele, responding to fights by taking out his mace and spraying the crowd, a tactic she told him was unjustified “overkill.””*

That the police doesn’t have a record about this can be explained by institutional racism in the USA police force. People believing that there is can easily take yet another n=1 case as a trigger for protest.

I can’t blame them in a country where nobody who sees the Amy Cooper video thinks it is satire (again n=1, but part of a pattern), but many would if the skin colors were reversed.

People feel like it is happening to them all the time. Police stops for being 'suspicious looking', while walking on their own street. Friends who were shot by police, bad experiences, racist remarks spoken with impunity by policemen. The sound of car doors locking as you cross the street. Security guards following you around the shopping center. Security guards who reach for their mace when you try to talk to them. The list goes on. People are fed up and frustrated.

Confirmation bias, absolutely. Every situation starts to take on racial connotations. Going through situations wondering if it is all in your head isn't fun either.

The lockdowns absolutely have something to do with it. When you are young and rambunctious you absolutely want to engage in hooliganism. Get a group of people like that together and they feed off eachother. Throw in rationalizations about racial justice, add on heaps of frustration and combine that with unemployment, bordem caused by months of lockdown...

Let's talk about the white guilt too. White saviors are out there projecting their own guilt onto others, blaming society etc. They can turn that guilt into heroism in their minds.

Then there is the general political hatred and divisive atmosphere. The whole thing is basically a perfect storm. To assume that no one would manipulate these forces for political gain seems like a huge leap.

Add all of these emotional factors together with a history of documented police abuse. Do protesters need a reason? Does it matter if it is entirely rational?

This is the situation we find ourselves in. The proposed solution is more political bickering and blaming. Extra points if you can guess where that will lead.

> English is not my first language, honestly I am trying to understand here.

You're doing better than many English natives, who can't use their own language correctly. Some of the key misuses in this event are referring to "looters", "vandals", "arsonists" and other criminals as "protestors". Protestors protest, they don't invade, pilfer and destroy other people's private property.

A left-wing media is complicit in continuing these kinds of misuses of English to stir up people driven by emotion rather than logic. By failing to separate peaceful protest from violent crime, they've helped to drum up a wave of violence spreading over many US cities.

The people calling for this behaviour to spread are absolute hypocrites, because they will call for destruction and chaos under the excuse of "historic racism," but will never direct people to their own homes or businesses or provide them the box of matches to set it ablaze. It's OK apparently, to destroy other people's private property, but not my own.

Of course, racism has nothing to do with the violence and theft. There are two groups engaged in the crime: one is simply petty thieves who want a quick reward and are taking advantage of the situation to do it. The other is white "liberals" who feel they can use the opportunity to bring about a socialist revolution. I quote liberals because they only self-title this way but do not behave like a liberal (another case where correct use English is being dismantled: people believe that if they self-identify as something, it must be true, even if reality and action prove otherwise).

To be clear, what happened to George Floyd was a disgrace and the officer in question should be brought to swift justice. The emotionally driven mob seem to believe that if you are against the destruction of private property then you mustn't care about what happened to Floyd and other cases like his (which are absolutely not exclusive to blacks). They are unable to use logic correctly and will attempt to shame anybody calling for an end to the wave of crime spreading through American cities, labelling them as racist or whatever fits their narrative.

It's pretty clear that the protesting should be peaceful only, and should be about police violence, without the racial narrative. Police violence happens to people of every creed. It's kinda funny that these protestors will call for an end to injustice handed down by the State, but then go home and return to calling for a bigger State - the socialist state.

The root of the problem here is that the State does not work for the individual, it works for the State. The police are not there to protect you, they are there to protect the State. The worst-offender for misuse of English is the term "we" to try and convince people that the State is, or includes them, as individuals. Take note every time you see terms like "we", "ours", "we should", etc. in news print. Who are they really referring to when they use these terms? Are they talking about themselves, or are they talking about you? It is very important! If you can't understand the basic language, how are you ever going to make sense of reality?