Local BLM supporters react to DC riots: “America has some unanswered promises on both parts”

YORK, Pa. (WHTM) — Local supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement mostly echoed sentiments online, among BLM supporters and some others, that the police response to Wednesday’s chaos in DC was notably more subdued than the response to protests last summer after the death of George Floyd.

“It’s white privilege at its finest,” York resident John Dalton said.

“You’ve seen white folks on the steps of the Capitol. Black folks wouldn’t have gotten that far. You’ve seen white folks fighting over the barrier with the cops,” Dalton said. “If it had been black folks, they’d have been shot on the spot.”

Jerome Bowers, a hip-hop artist and activist better known in the music world as “Durty Flow,” didn’t disagree with that part of the reaction.

“To see the same people who were saying ‘blue lives matter’ run those same blue lives up the steps,” Bowers said, “I was like, ‘Oh you’re all just saying it. Okay well everybody’s a hypocrite, that’s how we’re gonna do it.'”

But he chose to focus just as much on what the Trump supporters have in common with BLM protestors. He doesn’t agree with the Trump supporters’ message, but he relates to their rage.

“America has some unanswered promises on both parts,” Bowers said. “If I stand for protest [against] injustice on my behalf, if another person feels like they have a bit of injustice happen to them, and they want to protest and get unruly, who am I to point the finger? Because it could be tomorrow that we have a protest and I’m out there like, ‘Hey, we gotta stand up for ourselves.'”