In June, a Florida appeals court upheld Gov. Ron DeSantis’s anti-rioting law. The law, which both increases penalties for existing crimes and creates new crimes aimed at, in DeSantis’s words, ending “the bullying and intimidation tactics of the radical left,” was challenged in a lawsuit that argued it would undermine free speech rights of protesters. The appeals court decided the law, which DeSantis championed as a response to the 2020 George Floyd rebellion, is acceptable, because further criminalizing protest that is “disruptive,” “violent,” or can injure people or property is distinguishable from “the peaceful, nonviolent exercise of First Amendment rights.”

DeSantis’s anti-rioting law is part of a significant trend, with jurisdictions across the U.S. considering and passing new legislation that enhances criminalization of protest tactics, such as blocking sidewalks or highways, wearing masks, or damaging monuments, and threatens social movement groups by targeting their financial transactions.

In times like these, the way we talk about repression is immensely important, and can generate norms that determine how we do, or don’t, practice solidarity. Recent waves of mobilization against the genocide of Palestinians — including the widespread public protests targeting politicians and weapons manufacturers, and the student encampments — give us an opportunity to improve the way we talk about resistance and repression.

When journalists, defense attorneys, organizers, academics, and others comment on resistance actions and the police responses, too often we lead with harmful liberal tropes that divide protesters into the “defensible” and “indefensible.”

In trying to justify resistance actions and criticize criminalization of protesters, we frequently use talking points that inadvertently undermine our struggles.

Assertions, such as, “This is not what our justice system looks like,” give cover to the persistent racism and arbitrary lawlessness inherent to colonial legal systems.

One way this happens is when our talking points legitimize repressive institutions like the police and the U.S. legal system as a whole. Another is when they isolate people who use bold resistance tactics, making them more vulnerable to attacks. A third is when they erase connections between current patterns of criminalization and the long histories of........

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