On Saturday's Velshi show, MSNBC host Ali Velshi uncorked a commentary defending his attempts to "contextualize" leftist rioting last June as an acceptable method against "injustice. Like many others, Velshi gave cover to rioters and rationalized their actions.
He began by complaining about the conservative media and President Donald Trump using a clip from last May of him standing in front of a burning building in Minneapolis portraying the city's protests as "not unruly" and mostly peaceful. Velshi justified this spin as just a brief clip:
And I was concerned that the impression a viewer might get from watching a police station overcome and of buildings burning was that of a riot, or that Minneapolis itself was burning -- and it wasn't -- so I wanted to emphasize that there had been and remained an overwhelming majority of the protesters who were peaceful and not participating in any violence. So I did for about 20 seconds after my minute and a half report. And that 20 seconds is the only part of several days of reporting that the right-wing media continues to circulate.
Because it makes people laugh. It says "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?" He further complained:
In fact, by late in the presidential campaign, an inaccurate blending of the events of those days became a regular laugh line for Donald Trump who repeatedly told rallygoers some version of the story about how the media embraced, downplayed and encouraged violence. That 20-second clip of my reporting without the context made its way to the floor of Congress as part of a hearing.
Without acknowledging that it is merely his opinion that the anti-police "uprisings" have been justified, Velshi went on to characterize riots for such a cause he agrees with to be less bad than the attack on Capitol Hill:
But here's the truth: Most of the media did not excuse or condone violence. Some of us, like me, did work hard to contextualize it and there is a distinction between the violent protests and protests that have violence. Now, critics wonder, "Why is there widespread revulsion at the violence at the Capitol when I and others have spent months trying to say that violence can be a necessary part of protests?" Well, for starters, the Capitol is not a liquor store. Rabbi Joseph Rabin from the Manhattan Jewish Center sent that line in a message to his congregants about the attack, saying of the Capitol, quote, "When someone breaks its windows, it's not criminal mischief -- it's an assault on democracy and decency." And that is the point -- violence must always be understood in context.
Velshi has previously rationalized anti-police rioting, and even that resisting arrest might be justified, as he covered the protests last summer.
In spite of the false narrative pushed by the media suggesting police overwhelmingly commit violence against blacks, Velshi likened complaints about police-involved deaths to other more worthy social movements from the past:
The violence of the anti-Apartheid movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Indian independence campaign -- any violence at all that fights injustice is violence with meaning behind it, borne of the failure of other means and methods of redress. The killing of Ahmaud Arbery by white vigilantes in Georgia, and of George Floyd by Minneapolis police are facts authenticated and witnessed on video by millions. Violence that means to spread democracy and justice and encourage fairness in the application of the rule of law has nothing at all in common with the wanton anti-democratic riots of January 6th
Why can't MSNBC condemn and acknowledge both?
The MSNBC host did not address the spikes in violent crime that often occur in the aftermath of such anti-police protests in which the increased death toll by civilians substantially outweighs the approximately 1,000 criminal suspects killed by police each year.
Just recently, Fox News reported that the homicide rate in New York and other big cities has doubled since this time last year, which is even worse than the spike in violent crime that occurred between 2014 and 2016 after the riots over the shooting death of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
This episode of MSNBC's Velshi show was sponsored in part by Microtouch Titanium Trim. Their contact information is linked.
Transcript of Ali Velshi's commentary follows:
MSNBC
Velshi
January 16, 2021
9:41 a.m. Eastern
On the night of Thursday, May 28, I was standing in front of a burning liquor store at the curb corner of East Lake Street and Minnehaha Avenue in Minneapolis. Three days had passed since the killing of George Floyd by police, and I had been at that intersection for six hours watching and reporting on the frustration growing. I talked about it for 90 seconds. I described the scene in detail to my colleague, Brian Williams, who was anchoring in New York City.
And I was concerned that the impression a viewer might get from watching a police station overcome and of buildings burning was that of a riot, or that Minneapolis itself was burning -- and it wasn't -- so I wanted to emphasize that there had been and remained an overwhelming majority of the protesters who were peaceful and not participating in any violence. So I did for about 20 seconds after my minute and a half report. And that 20 seconds is the only part of several days of reporting that the right-wing media continues to circulate.
In fact, by late in the presidential campaign, an inaccurate blending of the events of those days became a regular laugh line for Donald Trump who repeatedly told rally goers some version of the story about how the media embraced, downplayed and encouraged violence. That 20-second clip of my reporting without the context made its way to the floor of Congress as part of a hearing. But here's the truth: Most of the media did not excuse or condone violence. Some of us, like me, did work hard to contextualize it and there is a distinction between the violent protests and protests that have violence.
Now, critics wonder, "Why is there widespread revulsion at the violence at the Capitol when I and others have spent months trying to say that violence can be a necessary part of protests?" Well, for starters, the Capitol is not a liquor store. Rabbi Joseph Rabin from the Manhattan Jewish Center sent that line in a message to his congregants about the attack, saying of the Capitol, quote, "When someone breaks its windows, it's not criminal mischief -- it's an assault on democracy and decency." And that is the point -- violence must always be understood in context.
The violence of the anti-Apartheid movement, the Civil Rights Movement, the Indian Independence campaign -- any violence at all that fights injustice is violence with meaning behind it, borne of the failure of other means and methods of redress. The killing of Ahmaud Arbery by white vigilantes in Georgia, and of George Floyd by Minneapolis police are facts authenticated and witnessed on video by millions. Violence that means to spread democracy and justice and encourage fairness in the application of the rule of law has nothing at all in common with the wanton anti-democratic riots of January 6th fueled by Donald Trump and QAnon conspiracy theories of an election that was stolen.January 6th was a violent insurrection in support of a coup attempt and should be met with nothing but universal scorn. And if you doubt the severity and determination of that mob, we learned that while the Secret Service says Vice President Mike Pence was secure, they moved him to a nearby safe room just one minute before the insurrectionists got to the Senate floor. They apparently wanted to hang him. The effect of violence, the loss of life, of property, and the potential for prosperity that often hits those people who are on the same side as the protesters cannot be ignored, and has not been ignored. But to compare the underlying goals of protests about injustice that have become violent at their edges to an anti-democratic uprising with violent aims at its core fueled by lies and conspiracy theories is simply to ignore history.
