North Carolina governor Pat McCrory—formerly mayor of Charlotte—declared a state of emergency in North Carolina on Thursday following the previous day's protests. The state of emergency authorizes the governor to deploy National Guard troops to put down riot, rebellion, protest, or uprising.
A state of emergency is, according to social theorist Giorgio Agamben, an excuse the state uses to suspend constitutional rights and extend its power—for example, the establishment of extralegal detention at Guantanamo Bay following 9/11. These ideas are also familiar to fans of pop-leftist Naomi Klein as the "shock doctrine," which uses emergency as an excuse to neoliberalize areas following disasters like Hurricane Katrina.
Contrary to the author's recollection, what "state of emergency" is not is the title of the excellent Bjork song that prominently features those words as lyrics; that song is properly titled "Joga."