Concern 6

But What About Outside Agitators?

This section looks at the myth of outside agitators from the far left and right, who some believe may deter from the original goals.

01

Officials Blame 'Out-Of-State' Agitators But Those at the Heart of Protests Are Homegrown

By Brett Murphy, Josh Salman, and Dak Le, USA Today (May 31, 2020)

This article refutes claims by officials and politicians that “outside agitators” are to blame for violent protest tactics. Experts explain how the charge of “outside agitators” is used by both police and politicians, including President Trump, to justify a more aggressive police response and avoid taking a side.

“The narrative offers a simple, tidy explanation for violence that allows politicians to simultaneously support the ethos of the movement and the police officers trying to keep the peace. But it’s not true.”

“St. Paul police logs show two-thirds of those arrested for looting and property destruction connected to the protests are from Minnesota. And the Minneapolis logs show 93 of the 109 people arrested in the city between Thursday night and Saturday morning reside in-state.”

“There is this very common idea in policing to attribute the violence to professional protestors who come from other places for the purposes of causing chaos,” said Edward Maguire, a professor of criminology at Arizona State University. “There are some people who do travel to protest and to some extent that does happen, but the idea is dramatically overblown.” 

“Amber Hamilton, a sociology Ph.D. candidate at the University of Minnesota, wrote that Minnesotans seem quick to accept the state’s narrative of outside destruction without real evidence that it’s true. ‘I’m afraid that that’ll lead people to accept uses of forces that they may not otherwise.’”

02

The Return of the “Outside Agitator”

By Kanishka Chowdhury, Counterpunch (June 1, 2020)

This article details how the term “outside agitator” is used to dismiss the possibility of actual local outrage and to ignore the solidarity that exists among millions of people who routinely experience police violence and systemic racism.

“...Acts of police violence are immediately recognizable to millions of people whether they are in Chicago, Minneapolis, Oakland, or San Antonio . . . indeed there is no “outside” for communities of color, for they are inside the totality of systemic oppression.”

“...The rage we see in the streets comes not just from the anger at the death of George Floyd, but from . . . an awareness which has been sharpened over the last two months by witnessing the callous disregard for Black lives, for Black people who have continued to work in low wage, dangerous jobs; to line up at food banks; to struggle to pay rent, all while having limited access to healthcare in the midst of a pandemic.”

“Rather than placing their predominant emphasis on “outside agitators,” those in power should heed King’s admonition, working with community activists to enact transformative change.”

03

Featuring insights from academics Aldon Morris, a Professor of Sociology and African-American history at Northwestern University, and Kathleen Fitzgerald, a teaching Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, this article examines the way the outside agitator narrative has been used to gaslight away from the purpose of the protests.

“Organizers and activists often travel beyond their own regions to demonstrate around causes that they have a stake in. Automatically casting suspicion on all protesters from out of town ignores the way that social change movements work, Morris said.”

"When you can delegitimize authentic expressions of discontent, then you can mobilize violent force against them,"

“The demonstrations playing out across the nation right now have complex roots. And though there may be bad actors who are attempting to exploit the pain of communities, there is no one simple narrative. So as some authorities blame outsiders for the unrest that's playing out, experts say they might do well to consider what brought people to the streets in the first place.”

04

Written by historian Paul Heideman, this article examines the historical roots of the “outside agitator” idea and how it was used to discredit the Black Freedom struggle. It shows how the anti-communist movement of the Truman era and McCarthyist anti-communist campaigns of the late 1940s impacted the fight for racial equality.

“In fact, the split between race and class can be traced to a specific moment in American history, when the causes of racial and class equality were sundered. That moment was the Red Scare in the middle of the twentieth century.”

“The nature of racial oppression itself had been redefined at the height of the Cold War. While even many liberals in the 1930s and ‘40s had agreed that racial inequality was intimately bound up with the structure of economic power in American life, the anticommunist crusade had made these sorts of critiques politically radioactive. Instead, liberal intellectuals like Gunnar Myrdal and Harry S. Ashmore redefined racial inequality as a kind of ugly atavism, an exception to the American creed that only held the country back from its mission of global leadership.”

“Racial equality and class equality had been divorced as political visions. The repression of class radicalism during McCarthyism created a void that has defined American politics since. This repression combined with the limits of racial liberalism to create a predictable dynamic in American politics, whereby dissatisfaction with the anemic vision of racial liberalism gave rise to movements of rebellion. However, those movements, detached from class politics and the kinds of social forces that could give them weight, either dissipated into the ether of marginal militancy, or were reabsorbed into a renewed racial liberalism.”

“For all the lip service paid to intersectionality in contemporary discourse, too many visions of Black advance are all too happy to see that advance occur within a society whose fundamental structure remains unchanged. Often, it seems that antiracism is defined simply as the equal distribution of inequality. An earlier generation of civil rights struggle saw things differently. They, and their opponents, understood that Black equality required a fundamental transformation of American society.”

05

Blaming ‘Outside Agitators’ a Deflection Rooted in Civil Rights Era

By The Editorial Board, The Baltimore Sun (June 1, 2020)

This article gives a good summary of the historical use of the term “outside agitators,” rooting it deeply in the countermovement to the Civil Rights era. It explains how the narrative of an “outside agitator” gives politicians the ability to dismiss real problems and shift focus onto violent events rather than their root causes.

“The three civil rights workers were kidnapped and killed in 1964 in the infamous “Mississippi Burning” case investigated by the FBI. But even after the bodies of the three young men were recovered, the impression that they were troublemakers from the North stuck. Most of those accused of involvement in their murder were acquitted; the harshest punishment meted out at the time was a 10-year prison sentence.”

“It’s much easier for a politician to point a finger at people from afar than admit that the unrest is rooted in deep racial division and long-standing inequities, in systemic and individual racism; in police brutality; in lack of quality education, health care, housing and job opportunities; and in the simmering anger that comes from knowing that nothing of consequence is being done about these social ills.”

“Even some who concede that Derek Chauvin and some of his former police colleagues should face criminal sanctions for George Floyd’s death aren’t willing to see the bigger picture, the pattern of oppression at work. Instead, they follow a narrative of one bad cop, some peaceful protests, followed by those “outside agitators” who are the real problem. How convenient for those who resist change, including a president who consistently finds himself on the wrong side on issues involving race relations. How much easier to promote conspiracy theories on Twitter than engage in meaningful and courageous reforms in real life.”

06

We Have Seen the ‘Outside Agitator’ and He Is Us

By Eric Levitz, New York Magazine (June 1, 2020)

This piece makes a similar point to the Counterpunch article, noting that no group is a stranger to police violence, and therefore no one lacks a legitimate reason to protest. Furthermore, the article argues that “agitation” is much more apt to describe the state violence that spurred on the protests than any actions taken in the course of the protest itself.

“Unruly agents of the state are the most “inside” of all possible agitators.”

“America saw 1,004 of its people killed by police officers last year, a higher tally than any nation besides Brazil, Venezuela, the Philippines, or Syria. A majority of those killed had light skin. There is no one in the United States who lacks standing to protest this state of affairs.”

“Regardless, none of the so-called rioters are outsiders to this country. Not the rebels, criminals, nihilists, white supremacists, or cops. No other society is responsible for their outrage, boredom, hatred, or brutality. The fact is that we live in an increasingly low-trust society where established institutions are rapidly losing legitimacy.”

07

The Long History of the ‘Outside Agitator’

By Jacey Fortin, The New York Times (June 8, 2020)

This piece contextualises the history of the ‘outside agitator’ narrative for today’s protests. Looking back at early social movements, the article examines the use of the ‘outside agitator’ claim to spread misinformation, justify the use of extreme force, discredit widespread national support for the movement, and delegitimize the demands of demonstrators.

“Part of the motivations for the charge was to sustain the myth that the locals were satisfied with things as they were,” he said, “and if you could just crack down on the outsiders, the protests would cease. As the movement grew and spread, that myth became more difficult to sustain.”

“There’s hardly a movement in the last 50 years that hasn’t had some tension or antagonism between those whose tactics are perceived as being destructive or aggressive, and those whose tactics are seen as disobedient but peaceful,” 

“Claims about the influence of “outsiders” have been a common refrain around demonstrations of all types ever since. This has been particularly true of protests against police misconduct.”

“In 2014, officials warned of outside influence when people protested the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. In 2015, when demonstrators gathered in Baltimore after Freddie Gray died in police custody, the police described “pockets of people from out of town causing disturbances.” And shortly after protests erupted in Minnesota last month, officials claimed that the people arrested were mostly from out of state — and then walked back those comments.

”“Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea,” Dr. King wrote. “Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”