The tall white man was dressed in all black and carrying an umbrella. In one of his hands, he held a hammer and calmly attacked an Auto Zone store in Minneapolis. Black protestors looked at him quizzically, and some even tried to stop him. He’s now known on the Internet as the “umbrella man”.

This unknown man, some who have said was an undercover cop who intentionally was inciting mayhem, is nothing new when it comes to protests. Agent provocateurs place themselves in the center of it all as distractions and are typically masochists and anarchists who are just out wreaking havoc for the thrill or attempting to infiltrate a movement.

Of course, it should be no shock to people, that they’re mainly white. And currently, with all of the protests going on across the country, they’re purporting themselves as allies. But beware, they’re anything but.

We’ve seen photos of white people flipping cars. We’ve seen them setting fires. We’ve seen them masked. We’ve seen them wear white bands around their arms, signaling to their fellow plainclothes cop comrades that they’re one of them. And that’s not to say all of these agent provocateurs are cops. But best believe, the ones who are cops, are easily identifiable.

The ones who aren’t cops? The ones burning buildings and masquerading around as if they care about the lives of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery? Those are the ones you should be worried about. Those are the ones destroying cities they don’t live in, and after they get their rocks off, they return to their idyllic home in the suburbs, turn on their televisions and laugh.

If I had to describe the typical personality of one of these agent provocateurs, I’d say they were typical 4chan and Reddit thread members coming to life. These people couldn’t give a damn about the movement they’re infiltrating. They don’t care about Black lives mattering. They’re only there to get off on the destruction.

Agent provocateurs are nothing new and in a lot of instances sometimes the United States government has used them to infiltrate and disrupt movements. And considering we have the biggest agent provocateur living in the White House, it would only make sense that they are also out on the streets during this time of unrest.