Some among Seattle’s radical left believe that “riot privilege” enjoyed by a roving band of black mask wearing white folks during the city’s annual May Day protests are ruining the political statement they’re trying to make.

The Seattle Globalist writer Goorish Wibneh penned an enlightening editorial about the situation that explores what the city’s social justice warriors, immigration rights advocates, and Black Lives Matter protesters think about “young white zealots exploiting a ‘privilege to riot.’”

“Most news coverage of May Day focuses on wanton violence by anarchists who want smash stuff and fight the police. More thoughtful coverage critiques the black bloc for co-opting May Day and overshadowing the efforts of peaceful, well-organized immigration and Black Lives Matter protestors,” he wrote.

Wibneh’s missive centers on the critical question: “… (D)o some people, like white anarchists, have a ‘privilege to riot’ that others don’t?”

Johnathan Rosenblum, a writer and union organizer who is friends with Wibneh, thinks the anarchists depicted on television each year smashing things are a construct of a false media narrative.

“In recent May Days, my family has marched, my kids have marched. We haven’t had any problems with anybody,” Rosenblum told the Globalist. “There are folks in the establishment who want to try to diminish the unity and cloud the movement by raising the specter of riot.”

Another long-time activist in the city who would not use his real name told Wibneh it used to be cool to smash things during protests, but it’s now become so predictable that it’s lame.

“In Seattle, there has been things that some would call ‘riots’ on May Day. … Sometimes they have been pretty awesome,” the 40-year-old man said. “I was pretty stokes that in 2012 American Apparel, Nike Town, Bank of America, the Federal Building, got smashed up.”

But “Since (2012), May Day has become a ritualized thing in Seattle,” he continued. “ … (I)t’s not confrontational actually. It’s predictable. So it’s too small and limited by the state.”

The man said the annual May Day riots in Seattle are not the same thing as recent race-based riots in Baltimore or Ferguson, Missouri, which he seems to think are warranted.

“I support those (riots) absolutely much more than people choosing to ritually show up every year wherever for a pantomime riot,” he said. “When it comes to places like Baltimore for Ferguson, a person is killed by a cop, people are outraged … by discernible harm.”

Local Black Lives Matter activist Michael Moynihan told the Globalist there is such a thing as “privilege to riot,” particularly when viewed globally, but said rioters of all races are at risk of arrest in the U.S., though he believes white protesters are less at risk than blacks.

“Those (white) people who have anarchist political ideology or anti-fascist belief system are extremely marginalized by the media as perpetrators of violence,” he said.

Regardless, those white people generally face less severe consequences for their actions, Moynihan alleged.

“If a bunch of black Somali Muslims started forming an anarchist group and protest with their faces masked up, they would be thrown into Guantanamo Bay,” he said.

Moynihan contends police do not go after whites protesting for their 2^nd Amendment rights, or against white environmental activists, with the same vigor as black or minority protesters.

“They hardly bring out any police regardless of whether or not they are shutting down a street or locking down a business,” he said. “They treat those protests much much different because of the makeup of the people who are in the demonstration.”