Labeling BLM protesters terrorists is a weapon to strip legitimacy from grievances

Evidence

The BLM protests, for whites observing from afar with fear, embodied that very sword. This is why they, and their mouthpieces in mainstream media, castigated the protesters as “looters” and “thugs” and “terrorists,” seeking to strip the legitimacy of their grievances with the dulling edge of the sword they had swung for so long. But what unfolded in Minneapolis and other cities across the world was no sword seeking retribution or vengeance. … What unfolded in the summer of 2020 after Floyd’s murder was indeed a new season. Whites, in fact, marched alongside protestors of all hues who were collectively conspiring to erode the most harmful invention of its era, white supremacy. And once and for all, to topple it, like they did the statues erected to glorify its myth and the misery it spread. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 1142

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s global-synthesis project: the “terrorist” label is the same delegitimizing technique the book traces across national Islamophobia cases against other target groups. — connects to: Calling an event ‘riot’ or ‘revolution’ is itself a consequential claim; The terrorist label flexibly expands to smear domestic dissenters and protesters — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 91; Terrorism labeling expands opportunistically to discredit domestic protest movements