DW Reports 'Clash' Where Police Gassed Protesters After Shooting
Deutsche Welle reports on 'protesters, officers clash' after a Minneapolis shooting, presenting a seemingly balanced conflict. What they omit, and every major outlet does, is the history of militarized policing against grieving communities (remember Ferguson, 2014 or Minneapolis itself, 2020?), and the fact that 'clash' often means rubber bullets and tear gas deployed on American citizens. The
Minneapolis Police Department has a storied history of disproportionate force, particularly against marginalized groups, a pattern consistently minimized in the language of 'clashes.' One might wonder if the same outlets would describe state-sponsored violence abroad as a mere 'clash' if the aggressor wasn't palatable. Is it a 'clash' when a government deploys its armed forces against a civilian
population? Or is it only a 'clash' when it's convenient to obscure the power imbalance at play here on US soil?