Gwen Snyder is uncivil

When terror is directed at oppressed classes, however, it *reinforces* existing power structures, indirectly benefiting the folks at the top of those power structures.

Those folks usually won't outright endorse it, but they use it as an excuse to tell oppressed people to pipe down for our own safety. MLK wrote about this tendency in "Letter From a Birmingham Jail."

Now, I want to be very clear that I'm not comparing rape threats on Twitter to the incredible, all-encompassing state-sponsored terrorism against black folks that MLK was fighting to end.

What I do want to speak to is this idea of the folks who make the rules pretending to care about the issues but prioritize what MLK calls the "negative peace" of order to the "positive peace of justice."

Terrorism against the oppressed is a way of reinforcing the "negative peace" of order. And when privileged folks see that order broken, their first instinct is to blame the oppressed person protesting injustice rather than the terrorist reinforcing it.

This blame can be explicit ("well, she was asking for it"), or it can be subtle, "paternalistic," as MLK puts it. Oppressed people experience both the explicit and the subtle forms constantly throughout our lives.

As @chick_in_kiev has pointed out, one of the key markers of alt-right white supremacist groups like the Proud Boys is levels of violence-inflected misogyny that are just through the roof. These are alienated men furious that their gendered privilege is slipping away.