How to Distinguish Between Antifa, White Supremacists, and Black Lives Matter
As protesters clash in occasionally violent street confrontations that spread via online video, provoking emotional conversations that could touch almost anyone on Facebook or Twitter, millions of Americans feel pressure to pick a side, to support or denounce a faction, knowing that whatever they say about white supremacists, Antifa, or Black Lives Matter, they risk being criticized for failing to condemn violence on “their side,” or for suggesting a false equivalence between groups.
How can a conflicted observer find clarity?
One way forward is to distinguish between a group’s ends and its means. Diligently doing so can help anyone to formulate a defensible position, to better understand those who disagree, and to emphasize common ground that too often goes unrecognized.
Take some uncontroversial examples.
Against Malaria Foundation is one of my favorite charities. Their stated goal is protecting people from a devastating disease, malaria. There is no reason to doubt that claim. And the means they’ve chosen, providing people at risk of malaria with bed nets, is morally unobjectionable and practically effective. They’re praiseworthy across the board.
ISIS is at the
