‘A War of Words.’ Why Describing the George Floyd Protests As ‘Riots’ Is So Loaded
June 19, 2020
As unrest has continued day after day and in town after town in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, a secondary skirmish has emerged: deciding how to describe what’s happening. In speeches and newsrooms and social media posts, people have had to make choices about how to characterize widespread, evolving unrest. Are cities in the…