The riots - I just don't understand

[bettyandbob]

 

 

And FTR, we still have not been told why the police went after Freddie Grey. He approached and ran, he was chased and later found to have a switchblade, but the knife was found after the fact. From what I can find, the Baltimore police have still not released the reason why police approached Freddie Grey as he was talking to friends on a street corner. But maybe it has come out? I mean, from the actual police, not conjecture.

 

 

 

Additionally, the knife found after the fact was of legal size. Possessing that knife was not a crime.

 

Really, it seems they searched him in order to find a reason to arrest and didn't find one.

[Guest]

Did you read the part in the thread where 2000 people marched in nonviolent protest?

That doesn't matter because some criminals looted?

Even if it did, not caring about a murder because of some looters (who didn't kill anyone) makes zero sense. To me.

 

I'm aware of that. While in think marching is a bit... pointless, I had no issue with that in relation to this case. It is the devolving of the situation that is completely puzzling. Protests, sure. Anything beyond a nonviolent protest is completely unacceptable, because the only people who get hurt are the ones without the power to push back. It's your neighbor you're harming in that, not 'the man'.

 

Plenty of groups hold protests and solidarity marches without devolving.

[Guest]

The assumption that outrage at the senseless violence of the rioters negates a person's outrage at the senseless, violent death of Gray is ridiculous. I can be horrified at what happened to that young man as well as dismayed at the response that is harming innocent people. Asking a person which terrible action they find more reprehensible is also ridiculous. Neither violent action is excusable. None of those culpable, from the police officers to the looters & rioters, should get a free pass for their actions.

 

Amber in SJ

Bingo. You summed it up very concisely. I think we can be horrified at what happened to Gray and still find moral outrage in the destruction of Baltimore.

 

Carrying a legal knife should be neither an issue for arrest and certainly not for assault or murder. And murder isn't a good excuse to throw a brick through someone's window, no matter the color of their skin or their place of business or worship.

[Mommy22alyns]

Yeah. So what? Are you more outraged by them than the officers who killed Freddy Gray?

 

 

So two wrongs make a right?

[Slojo]

If I recall (given, it was before my time), much progress was made during the 50's and 60's regarding social justice, in the form of PEACEFUL protests, and God knows if there were ever a time when black people were terribly mistreated, it was then. Still, somehow, they got their point across, made progress (loads of it, actually) without hurting innocents, taking electronics and kiddie trains from malls, and destroying their own community.

 

As others have said, the 50's and 60's were not just peaceful protests. Lots of more violent outbreaks, too; much more of it by the state than by citizens though (and that fact should never be forgotten -- then or now). 

 

I think this description of social progress through peaceful protest ignores most of the history of racial conflict in the 20th century.

 

I understand that that is the narrative we like to focus on today, but it is simply not accurate.  In the late 1960s, for example, there were riots in LA, Chicago, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Louisville, New York, Baltimore, Kansas City, Buffalo, Michigan, Cleveland, and Boston, and that's only a partial list.  The narrative that America's social advancement on race issues (limited as it has been) came solely from peaceful protest is false.  (And that's not even getting into the lynch mobs and counter-riots of the 1910s, 1920s, and 1930s.)

 

Agreed -- we need to tell the full history to put today's events in context. 

 

Yet, I'm not seeing groups of women rioting, assaulting all men they see, burning buildings and stealing everything they see every time a woman is assaulted by a man.

And, you're not seeing black people burning buildings and stealing everything they see EVERY time an unarmed black man is killed by the police. There have been six very similar cases just this month. There haven't been six instances of rioting across the country coming across my TV screen in cities around the country - unless the media has suddenly decided that riots are not newsworthy...

 

It feels like a lot because we are living through a historic moment. All of the turmoil of the sixties felt like a lot as well. But actually, full out riots relating to racial injustice are actually quite rare in the sweep of history.  Much more present has been patterns of injustice or oppression of groups of people over years and years - long before "rioting erupts."   

 

See, I think what happened to Gray was just awful, and I hope appropriate action against any involved occurs. But to jump from that to protests, property damage, rioting, fires, and then looting complete ruins the credibility of the cause for me. I cannot understand the values of a single person involved in that. I can't see why that would be someone's response, no matter their outrage. That is morally foreign to me, and nearly as depraved as the initial beating (which is also evil and senseless). Protests, sure. The escalation leaves me shaking my head. And it is happening more and more frequently.

 

I want justice for Gray. Burning down someone's store is just more evil apropos to nothing.

The cause is still credible. Thousands upon thousands of people have been marching peacefully (did you see those pictures) -- tell me that a hundred looters does not negate that. Lots of peaceful protesters were trying to stop the looters, including one mom who recognized her son and publicly berated him and pulled him by the arm and said, "You're not doing this." That's not being talked about here, and held up as an example of people trying to keep the peace, and putting the looters - awful as that is -- in proper context. 

[Word Nerd]

The assumption that outrage at the senseless violence of the rioters negates a person's outrage at the senseless, violent death of Gray is ridiculous.  I can be horrified at what happened to that young man as well as dismayed at the response that is harming innocent people.  Asking a person which terrible action they find more reprehensible is also ridiculous.  Neither violent action is excusable.  None of those culpable, from the police officers to the looters & rioters, should get a free pass for their actions.  

 

Amber in SJ

 

Agreed. It's a false dichotomy.

[poppy]

So two wrongs make a right?

 

Being outraged at criminals is easy, but pointless.

Being outraged at the city and its governance is more challenging, but can actually lead to change.

So focus on the latter.

[Guest]

I can't be the only one who cheered for that mom when I saw the picture of her dressing down her son. She gets my bravo award for parenting adult children for that day.

[JustEm]

Umm have no idea how that post got on this thread since I never even opened it

[poppy]

I'm aware of that. While in think marching is a bit... pointless, I had no issue with that in relation to this case. It is the devolving of the situation that is completely puzzling. Protests, sure. Anything beyond a nonviolent protest is completely unacceptable, because the only people who get hurt are the ones without the power to push back. It's your neighbor you're harming in that, not 'the man'.

 

Plenty of groups hold protests and solidarity marches without devolving.

 

Look, I'm not pro-violence, I'm not a fan of the looters.But the fact is, we're only talking about all this because the protests got violent.   The people who got hurt are the ones without power, but, the news cameras came.

 

Plenty of groups hold protest and marches without devolving..... tell me what happened from them.  By your own reckoning, it's "pointless". 

[LucyStoner]

I understand it.

 

I don't condone it and I find it sad and a problem that needs to be addressed but I understand it.

 

People get tired of waiting for non-violent strategies to work. People get enraged at the same old same old. People are young and angry and restless. Or old and and angry and disillusioned that anything is ever going to change.

 

When people lose hope that the injustice that marks their lives will ever go away, they have less and less to lose. People with less and less to lose do stupid shit. And let's not forget, people are people. Violence is not a new part of the human experience.

 

There's been a lot of accelerant poured around this issue. Not just last year but for decades. You can't be surprized when a spark starts a fire in such a flammable landscape.

[ChocolateReignRemix]

Instead of just saying tsk, tsk at the rioters, this may be a good time for many to understand that we live in a nation with SERIOUS institutional and structural inequalities, and we may want to start addressing those before what we find out that what we have seen in Ferguson and Baltimore is walk in the park compared to what could happen.

[Butter]

So incredibly many wrong choices have been made by so incredibly many people.  Freddie Gray had a long rap sheet.  But the police should never have treated him like they did.

 

There is a long-simmering history in Baltimore City between the people and the police.  Police brutality is a long-standing issue.  Unfortunately, the peaceful protesters may have actually gotten somewhere.  Now everyone is focused on the looters and rioters when focus really should be on how the police treat people (including many who have done nothing wrong but are in the wrong place at the wrong time).

 

I'm really surprised the mayor didn't realize this was going to seriously erupt.

 

 

[raptor_dad]

Exactly. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s/early 1960s was NOT simply peaceful protest marches and bus boycotts. 

 

I don't know how to quite articulate this, but I fear that the persistent image of the CRM as peaceful and nonviolent is in a way a means of preserving power and control over poor minorities. The message is "we'll give you *some* rights, we'll listen to *some* of your grievances, but only if you ask nicely over and over and over and over again."

 

Exactly! King and others accomplished things not just through the peace and dignity of their protests but also by being the reasonable alternative to the Black Panthers and Malcom X and other radical elements(even peaceful radical groups like SNCC). Moderate groups often are more "effective" by being seen as an alternative to more radical/violent groups... Sinn Fein's success shows how this can work with even a weak seperation between groups... Let us not pretend many of these protests don't have a more violent side. That is disingenuous.  

 

[ChocolateReignRemix]

So incredibly many wrong choices have been made by so incredibly many people.  Freddie Gray had a long rap sheet.  But the police should never have treated him like they did.

 

There is a long-simmering history in Baltimore City between the people and the police.  Police brutality is a long-standing issue.  Unfortunately, the peaceful protesters may have actually gotten somewhere.  Now everyone is focused on the looters and rioters when focus really should be on how the police treat people (including many who have done nothing wrong but are in the wrong place at the wrong time).

 

I'm really surprised the mayor didn't realize this was going to seriously erupt.

 

I am curious but why do you think they would have this time?  The City of Baltimore has been successfully sued over 100 times in the past few years for police brutality claims and they have changed...nothing.  And then Gray gets his spinal column severed after he was in custody.  After.  Think about that for a second. 

 

More importantly, why should the actions of the rioters let the BPD off of the hook? 

[Butter]

I am curious but why do you think they would have this time?  The City of Baltimore has been successfully sued over 100 times in the past few years for police brutality claims and they have changed...nothing.  And then Gray gets his spinal column severed after he was in custody.  After.  Think about that for a second. 

 

More importantly, why should the actions of the rioters let the BPD off of the hook? 

 

Mainly because I didn't write what you seem to think I did.

 

*May* have.  I didn't say would have.  There is always a chance.  People react differently to someone trying to change something peacefully than they do to "thug" rioters.

 

I wrote, "Now everyone is focused on the looters and rioters when focus really should be on how the police treat people "  I didn't say the actions of the rioters should let the police off the hook.  I said the focus *should* be on the police and their treatment of people, but now everyone is focused on the rioters instead.

[raptor_dad]

One thing I haven't seen commented on here is that these Baltimore riots are in the same neighborhoods as the '68 riots. That was the beginning of Spiro Agnew's rise as a "law and order" Republican...

 

Come on... almost 50 years and no change... South Central LA is a different place today than during the Rodney King riots... 50 years and the same issues... Kids whose parents and grandparents and maybe great-grandparents lived in this same broken system. You're surprised when they lash out in a hateful, unproductive manner?? Really? I'm angry at  the rioters and saddened for the community, but mostly I"m ashamed for my country.  We. can. do. better.

[poppy]

Mainly because I didn't write what you seem to think I did.

 

*May* have.  I didn't say would have.  There is always a chance.  People react differently to someone trying to change something peacefully than they do to "thug" rioters.

 

I wrote, "Now everyone is focused on the looters and rioters when focus really should be on how the police treat people "  I didn't say the actions of the rioters should let the police off the hook.  I said the focus *should* be on the police and their treatment of people, but now everyone is focused on the rioters instead.

 

I don't know. Do you the DOJ would have investigated Ferguson without the protests?  Do you think anyone outside of Maryland would pay any attention at all to the problems in Baltimore without the looters?

"There is always a chance" is very passive.  Passively hoping for change doesn't get anyone anywhere.

[poppy]

I can't be the only one who cheered for that mom when I saw the picture of her dressing down her son. She gets my bravo award for parenting adult children for that day.

 

I cheered her too.

I wish the police who killed that guy had mothers like that.

[Rivka]

At my homeschool community center yesterday, well before the violence erupted, I heard one of the directors, a black woman my age, dressing down a black teenage boy. He was heading to Starbucks with some of his friends and made a stupid joke about robbing a store. There was PANIC in her voice. It was the voice you might use on a kid who ran blithely out in front of a semi truck.

 

It's a conversation I will never have to have with my middle-class white son.

 

Why is that?

 

Evidence tells us that my fair-skinned and standard-English-speaking son is unlikely to be perceived as a criminal and a threat just for existing in public spaces. He is vanishingly unlikely to be shot or beaten by the police when he is unarmed. I don't need to tell him how to act so that he won't get arrested or shot on a trip to Starbucks with his homeschooled friends. That's not a risk he faces. The burly black kid at my homeschool center? Nowhere near as safe. He has to be a lot more careful.

[Guest]

I cheered her too.

I wish the police who killed that guy had mothers like that.

I concur, because I don't generally find these incidents are in a vacuum. A lot of these officers have a history. I am hopeful the investigation will be thorough, fair, and just.

[Rivka]

Okay, I realize that I had better bow out of this conversation. This is my home, not an abstraction. I can't do this right now.

 

Not trying to flounce, just clarifying that I will no longer be engaging or (if I can prevent myself) reading.

[Slojo]

I can't be the only one who cheered for that mom when I saw the picture of her dressing down her son. She gets my bravo award for parenting adult children for that day.

 

I didn't quite cheer her. Don't get me wrong, I was very happy about and supportive of what she did (and would have done the same), but I kind of felt like the world was witnessing a moment that we probably shouldn't have got to witness. Almost like we were voyeurs or something. I thought it was incredibly sad to see a mom and kid in the moment of interacting like that. 

 

Of course, she should have corrected him, but I couldn't quite cheer. There's also this weird racialized dynamic that can go on when such correction is so public -- this cultural idea that is under the surface that black parents are generally not morally up to snuff so we get all in a twist when one of them "finally" corrects their child, and some odd satisfaction when we see it in public. I'm not saying that's where folks are here, just wanting to express a bit of caution at "cheering."

 

I imagine there is tension in that household today, and possibly embarassment from having that interaction on the street for the world to see - even though she did what needed to be done in the moment. And the larger issue is that she still has to help him navigate in an environment where the police still hold young black men like himself in suspicion, more often than not. So, yes, steering him clear of wrongdoing by joining in with the looters was extremely important, but so too, are her efforts to help him navigate and survive the tense and often-present dynamics between young people and police as well. I want to see some "cheering" for that, too. 

[Guest]

I think most people just saw a mom dealing with an adult child acting like an idiot. Of course, I cheer when my mom lays into my sibling, too, because he usually deserves it and she is about the ONLY person he listens to. So that's the dynamic I'm coming from, not anything racial.

 

I wouldn't credit or blame parenting for the issues with the rioters. It's way more complex than that. And the best parent in the world can't overcome the influence of culture and peers in a kid who is bent on following them. It's no reflection of upbringing.

[Pawz4me]

I can't be the only one who cheered for that mom when I saw the picture of her dressing down her son. She gets my bravo award for parenting adult children for that day.

 

No, I didn't cheer for her.

 

I admired her for getting her kid off the street and out of danger and for (potentially) stopping one more person from making the situation even worse.

 

I thought the way she went about it was sad and rather ironic, given the whole situation.

[Leav97]

I live in Baltimore.

 

There have been peaceful protests, larger and larger, every day since Freddie Gray was killed. Saturday night a small fraction of protestors became violent and damaged property. Yesterday afternoon, teens getting out of school arrived at a major bus transit junction to find hundreds of riot police and the buses shut down. There are no school buses in Baltimore, so kids take public transit to school - sometimes two or three buses, across the city. They were scared and mad about Freddie Gray, had no way to leave where they were, and were surrounded by threatening authorities. Not surprising to me that it spiraled out of control.

 

Last night's violence and property damage didn't come out of protests, though. The looters were opportunists responding to a perceived breakdown in social order. They're people who are disconnected from the society they live in and a total lack of expectation that they will ever "make it" through traditional/legal means.

 

For those who are baffled at why violence, why not work peacefully within the system, please read this Baltimore Sun report about police brutality: http://data.baltimoresun.com/news/police-settlements/

 

 

Over the years there have been countless public meetings, peaceful demonstrations, political efforts, nonviolent protests, and court actions to stem police brutality in Baltimore. Nothing has worked. More than 100 people WON THEIR COURT CASES - how many more didn't even go to court? - and even with that acknowledgement by the legal system of the problems, nothing has changed. It's easy for you to say "they should be patient, they're only hurting themselves" when you're not the 87-year-old lady whose shoulder was broken because the cops handcuffed her so roughly.

 

Freddie Gray was healthy and completely subdued, in shackles, when he was placed in that police van. When the paramedics eventually got to him, his spine was almost severed. Imagine the brutality that must have taken.

 

No, I don't think that looting is okay. But if the only wrong thing that's happened in Baltimore lately that you feel the need to post about is broken windows at a CVS and people loading themselves up with stolen shoes, I think you have to ask yourself why.

 

 

Thank you for posting.  I have a question about the bold part.  Do kids of all ages ride the public buses to school or just the older kids?  Why the hell would they shut down the kids ability to get home.  

[blondeviolin]

Evidence tells us that my fair-skinned and standard-English-speaking son is unlikely to be perceived as a criminal and a threat just for existing in public spaces. He is vanishingly unlikely to be shot or beaten by the police when he is unarmed. I don't need to tell him how to act so that he won't get arrested or shot on a trip to Starbucks with his homeschooled friends. That's not a risk he faces. The burly black kid at my homeschool center? Nowhere near as safe. He has to be a lot more careful.

I understand the racial differences in a place like Baltimore, for sure. But certainly every parent, regardless of race, should teach their children it is not wise to joke about things of this nature?

[Slojo]

I think most people just saw a mom dealing with an adult child acting like an idiot. Of course, I cheer when my mom lays into my sibling, too, because he usually deserves it and she is about the ONLY person he listens to. So that's the dynamic I'm coming from, not anything racial.

 

I wouldn't credit or blame parenting for the issues with the rioters. It's way more complex than that. And the best parent in the world can't overcome the influence of culture and peers in a kid who is bent on following them. It's no reflection of upbringing.

 

I appreciate this, I really do -- AND, it is also true that there can be a racialized dynamic to all of this. Just to note, I'm African American - which is relevant in that I've seen this kind of "praise" for parenting before.  In fact, some of the comments in news coverage about this have been pretty racialized. "Someone needs to control these animals on the streets... glad one mom stepped up..." Huh? You both praised and insulted her in the same breath -- she's great, but she also gave birth to an animal?  Questioning whether he had a father, etc... I also felt like the slapping him in public and cursing at him was this voyeuristic moment. It's just all a little odd to me -- but we are living through very strange times.  

 

Lots of comments about where are all these other parents (as if no other parents care about their kids -- maybe they weren't there. Seems like she happened to be there or was very close by, and had the opportunity to pull her individual kid back from the brink). And this faux praise of "mom of the year." Really?  Beating down and cursing at your child is "mom of the year" -- it may be what you had to do in a very tense moment, but is that really the standard we want to have for "mom of the year?" Again, don't get me wrong, I'm glad she got him off the streets and I viscerally understand the "doing what you have to do no matter who's watching" moment in parenting (we've all had them). I just don't like where this kind of "praise" can lead: "If only more black parents would do the same (control their kids physically), we wouldn't have these problems between young people and police" -- and it's just not that simple, and detracts from the larger issue.

[SproutMamaK]

I understand the racial differences in a place like Baltimore, for sure. But certainly every parent, regardless of race, should teach their children it is not wise to joke about things of this nature?

 

Why? How many time have people made a comment like "Yeesh, if I wanted to buy something like that I'd have to go rob a bank first." It's an offhand comment. Should people never be able to use humour out of fear that a passing police officer will take them seriously and beat them to death for it? Should we outlaw sarcasm and hyperbole, you know, for the safety of the people? That fact that ANY subset of the population has to deal with that sort of fear is sickening. The idea that we should ALL live that way and teach our children that to do so is a normal part of life, rather than trying to adress the fact that NO ONE should have to live like that, is... well to be honest I have no words for it. Frankly it seems like something straight out of a dsytopian YA novel, for all parents to have "the chat" with kids about how they should never use humour, even in private amongst their friends, lest someone hear them and report them and they die for it.

[Ausmumof3]

See, I think what happened to Gray was just awful, and I hope appropriate action against any involved occurs. But to jump from that to protests, property damage, rioting, fires, and then looting complete ruins the credibility of the cause for me. I cannot understand the values of a single person involved in that. I can't see why that would be someone's response, no matter their outrage. That is morally foreign to me, and nearly as depraved as the initial beating (which is also evil and senseless). Protests, sure. The escalation leaves me shaking my head. And it is happening more and more frequently.

 

I want justice for Gray. Burning down someone's store is just more evil apropos to nothing.

If this was my kid or my kids friends I don't think the leap would be hard to make at all .

[PeacefulChaos]

 

I think large parts of the African American population in this country has reason to think the larger society won't care all that much if they are beaten and have fire hoses turned on them. It certainly doesn't seem to care if their sons and fathers are shot in the streets.

 

Imagine the protests if what happened to Freddie Grey happened to a dog. I bet the response of society would be much stronger.

 

 

]

But why? Why would anyone think that???

 

I'll admit that I'm pretty behind on news, generally, because we don't have TV/don't watch the news. The extent of my news I get on fb - I follow one local channel , which is pretty much pointless unless you just want to hear about someone else being in a car accident or police responding to shots fired on ____ st. And then I follow bbc world news so that I get at least a little bit of outside news. Like the earthquake in Nepal, which almost none of my fb friends have taken up fb space to say anything about... But they'll waste it with a status like 'praying for baltimore'... Praying for what, in Baltimore, exactly?

 

Anyway, I did not know anything about this situation until rioting started. But had I known, of course I would find it horrifying!!! Why would anyone think that a fellow human being DOES NOT care?!

 

Here's the problem I have: what can be done to prevent this from happening in the first place? Yeah, yeah, I get it, the system is corrupt and blah blah blah... But what can be done? as a normal, not powerful, citizen of the U.S., do we just have to sit and talk about change while hoping that the powers that be DO something about it?

It frustrates me.

[Farrar]

Thank you for posting.  I have a question about the bold part.  Do kids of all ages ride the public buses to school or just the older kids?  Why the hell would they shut down the kids ability to get home.  

 

I could be wrong because I don't like there, but I'm pretty sure they all do. It's the same here in DC except for special needs students (riding the bus can be put on an IEP). Population density is such that neighborhoods are walkable and have neighborhood schools but high schoolers may have to go further and take a bus.

 

I read the same thing that Rivka posted on a couple of different sources. I don't think we know exactly why. Certainly part of the reason may just be that once it became clear that there were violent incidents in a couple of locations, a lot of things in Baltimore shut down very quickly, perhaps without fully considering the consequences. But it may have been purposeful to cordon off teens. I don't know.

 

I know that there was at least one image last night of an SUV on the streets with "I'm just looking for my daughter" painted roughly on the back. And teenagers weren't the only ones stranded. I heard an interview with an older, disabled person who was stranded at jury duty and the accessible bus refused to come get her and the court shut down and she was stuck on the streets for hours.

[Farrar]

Much of this thread is just depressing to me.

 

I hope that the people who helped initiate and cause violence on this one day are punished because I think they should be. I don't think what they've done is right, even if I can understand why it happened.

 

I hope even more that the thugs who have been perpetrating violence on the streets of Baltimore for the last several decades under the protection of the government are punished. Because that's the only thing that's ever going to make a difference and stop future riots and deaths.

 

What happened last night was sad. But I'm still much more outraged about the violence that led up to it.

[swimmermom3]

I concur, because I don't generally find these incidents are in a vacuum. A lot of these officers have a history. I am hopeful the investigation will be thorough, fair, and just.

 

That's probably a pipe dream, but it is a few inches closer to reality because of riots.  Five of six officers are saying they have no clue how a man that ran from them was unable to breathe or walk in an hour of their care. If they (officials) find these officers "clean," and they nearly always do unless there is irrefutable video and witness evidence, then Baltimore will likely have more rioting.

 

 

[swimmermom3]

I appreciate this, I really do -- AND, it is also true that there can be a racialized dynamic to all of this. Just to note, I'm African American - which is relevant in that I've seen this kind of "praise" for parenting before.  In fact, some of the comments in news coverage about this have been pretty racialized. "Someone needs to control these animals on the streets... glad one mom stepped up..." Huh? You both praised and insulted her in the same breath -- she's great, but she also gave birth to an animal?  Questioning whether he had a father, etc... I also felt like the slapping him in public and cursing at him was this voyeuristic moment. It's just all a little odd to me -- but we are living through very strange times.  

 

Lots of comments about where are all these other parents (as if no other parents care about their kids -- maybe they weren't there. Seems like she happened to be there or was very close by, and had the opportunity to pull her individual kid back from the brink). And this faux praise of "mom of the year." Really?  Beating down and cursing at your child is "mom of the year" -- it may be what you had to do in a very tense moment, but is that really the standard we want to have for "mom of the year?" Again, don't get me wrong, I'm glad she got him off the streets and I viscerally understand the "doing what you have to do no matter who's watching" moment in parenting (we've all had them). I just don't like where this kind of "praise" can lead: "If only more black parents would do the same (control their kids physically), we wouldn't have these problems between young people and police" -- and it's just not that simple, and detracts from the larger issue.

 

Interestingly enough, one "Tweeter" collected photos of white people rioting. There were many of them and they mostly had to do with sporting events, you know, like Penn State students rioting over Paterno's firing for protecting a pedophile. The rioters were mostly young people and they were burning cars and destroying property. I was wondering if anyone was calling those kids animals and asking where their parents were?

[Farrar]

Interestingly enough, one "Tweeter" collected photos of white people rioting. There were many of them and they mostly had to do with sporting events, you know, like Penn State students rioting over Paterno's firing for protecting a pedophile. The rioters were mostly young people and they were burning cars and destroying property. I was wondering if anyone was calling those kids animals and asking where their parents were?

 

Or, perhaps most importantly, escalating things with them. When sports fans riot, the police tends to plan and contain, not antagonize or pen people in or shut down their ways home.

[Tammi K]

What else can they do? This is not the first black man killed due to a 'rough ride'. In this situation, to shed light on a horrible injustice, I understand the riots.

 

Maybe I'm biased because my girls are living right in the middle if the riots but I'll never understand how destroying a CVS and stealing toilet paper and piles or merchandise sheds light on injustice.    T

 

That isn't justice. It's thievery.

[Mommy22alyns]

Interestingly enough, one "Tweeter" collected photos of white people rioting. There were many of them and they mostly had to do with sporting events, you know, like Penn State students rioting over Paterno's firing for protecting a pedophile. The rioters were mostly young people and they were burning cars and destroying property. I was wondering if anyone was calling those kids animals and asking where their parents were?

FWIW, I would, but I'm only one person.

 

I just fail to see any justification whatsoever for these kinds of actions. Is this really the lesson we want to teach our kids? If you get mad enough and if people do mean things to you, it's okay to steal and destroy property? My mind is boggled.

[redsquirrel]

But why? Why would anyone think that???

 

I'll admit that I'm pretty behind on news, generally, because we don't have TV/don't watch the news. The extent of my news I get on fb - I follow one local channel , which is pretty much pointless unless you just want to hear about someone else being in a car accident or police responding to shots fired on ____ st. And then I follow bbc world news so that I get at least a little bit of outside news. Like the earthquake in Nepal, which almost none of my fb friends have taken up fb space to say anything about... But they'll waste it with a status like 'praying for baltimore'... Praying for what, in Baltimore, exactly?

 

Anyway, I did not know anything about this situation until rioting started. But had I known, of course I would find it horrifying!!! Why would anyone think that a fellow human being DOES NOT care?!

 

Here's the problem I have: what can be done to prevent this from happening in the first place? Yeah, yeah, I get it, the system is corrupt and blah blah blah... But what can be done? as a normal, not powerful, citizen of the U.S., do we just have to sit and talk about change while hoping that the powers that be DO something about it?

It frustrates me.

 

I think if you know so little that you have no context for what has been happening in the country for the past couple years, it might be time to take the responsibility to educate yourself on this matter.  As I posted before, the Baltimore Sun, the paper of Baltimore, have made their coverage of the riots free to the public, you don't need an account to read it online. Maybe that would help you to know what is happening in Baltimore, if you really want to know.

 

Other than that, I don't even have the energy to link to you news stories, major and minor, from all over the country, about this. Treyvone Martin, Chicago having to pay half a billion since 2004 for police brutality, Tamir Rice and..well..all of Cleveland, Ferguson, Eric Garner, 1.5 million missing black men in America society.... really, I could go on and on. Again, this is all assuming that you actually want to know.  You ask what can be done, well, that is a difficult discussion to have with someone who hasn't even educated themselves about what the problems are...and writing it off as blah, blah, blah isn't really respectful to people who truly feel like they are being told their lives don't matter.

 

I'm glad you are curious and there is a lot out there to answer those questions you have.

 

[redsquirrel]

FWIW, I would, but I'm only one person.

 

I just fail to see any justification whatsoever for these kinds of actions. Is this really the lesson we want to teach our kids? If you get mad enough and if people do mean things to you, it's okay to steal and destroy property? My mind is boggled.

 

I don't think anyone is saying their actions are justifiable or good. I also think that it has been pointed out that peaceful demonstrations have been going on for days with out it descending into violence.

 

The lesson my kids are taking away is that there is only so far a people can be pushed before they push back. It is something they have learned from history. It has come up in SOTW, for example. And when people push back, there will always be some, on both sides of the conflict who would rather take advantage of the chaos for their own good or to vent their frustrations in the most destructive manner possible. Sometimes we call them looters and sometimes they are called war profiteers.

 

And in general, they have also learned that it isn't helpful to judge an entire group or people by the actions of few. It might make it easier to discount their protests or minimize their suffering, but in the long run it only puts off the work that needs to be done.

[PeacefulChaos]

I think if you know so little that you have no context for what has been happening in the country for the past couple years, it might be time to take the responsibility to educate yourself on this matter. As I posted before, the Baltimore Sun, the paper of Baltimore, have made their coverage of the riots free to the public, you don't need an account to read it online. Maybe that would help you to know what is happening in Baltimore, if you really want to know.

 

Other than that, I don't even have the energy to link to you news stories, major and minor, from all over the country, about this. Treyvone Martin, Chicago having to pay half a billion since 2004 for police brutality, Tamir Rice and..well..all of Cleveland, Ferguson, Eric Garner, 1.5 million missing black men in America society.... really, I could go on and on. Again, this is all assuming that you actually want to know. You ask what can be done, well, that is a difficult discussion to have with someone who hasn't even educated themselves about what the problems are...and writing it off as blah, blah, blah isn't really respectful to people who truly feel like they are being told their lives don't matter.

 

I'm glad you are curious and there is a lot out there to answer those questions you have.

 

I'm aware of all of those things, thanks. :rolleyes: I'm not an idiot. :D

I only said what I said about the news because I was saying that *I* didn't hear about what happened in Baltimore until riots started. It wasn't on the news websites that I saw, but I wasn't actively looking for it.

NO one has time to actively search for these things every day. If they do, well, more power to them. I'm sorry that I apparently come off as uneducated because I don't. :glare:

 

I'm not sure how everyone else gets their national news, but I don't have the time to go scouring every major city's news to figure out what's going on in the world. Until I can find a reliable news source online that isn't biased, I'll just go with what makes headlines that can be easily found - and all of the stories you listed above did.

 

I didn't "write anything off" as blah blah blah. I was saying (pretty clearly, IMO), that all I see is a bunch of talking heads everywhere (this is not in reference to here - I'm talking news, I'm talking people IRL, I'm talking every time a situation like this comes up) saying that 'the system is corrupt and we need to change it'. It wasn't that I was saying they were wrong - I was saying that merely saying that does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It just doesn't. While we (general) all sit here in our comfortable homes living our comfortable lives talking about all that's wrong in the world, who are we relying on to actually do anything about it? Is this really all we are reduced to? Sitting and talking about it?

 

I live in a town that has a tumultuous racial history. Very. They were some of the first to close the schools when they were desegregated - and some of the last to reopen. This town has a huge history. It is still evident today. I'm looking every day for ways to bridge that gap in my own community, and it angers me (sorry, but it does) to see how much racial bias still exists in 'the system' today. So I'm just expressing my frustration with it. I live in a town where I have seen my nice neighbor kid get stopped by the police for walking down the street just because he happened to be black, as was the person they were looking for in conjunction with a crime. (He didn't fit any of the other characteristics of the guy they wanted.) I live in a town where I actually know people - and know them well - who look at a family sitting in front of us at the orchestra (yes, they were black) and say "I wonder why they are here... I guess they could be homeschoolers, too..." Um, you think? (It was a homeschool event.) This sort of thing just happens here, all the time. In the small instances I've seen, I try to do what I can, but it's a fine line because I don't ever want to seem like I'm using white privilege in any situation... Idk. It's tough.

 

Anyway, I was trying to avoid going into all that and I thought my post was succinct and obvious enough to make it clear that I was familiar with what was going on and that I wish I knew what could be done. Clearly that wasn't what happened.

 

 

Eta: I just read back over this and I think I may come across very rude. I apologize. That wasn't my intent... I guess I'll chalk it up to being frustrated, hungry, and in a hurry :lol: but that's no excuse. Sorry.

[Mommy22alyns]

I don't think anyone is saying their actions are justifiable or good. I also think that it has been pointed out that peaceful demonstrations have been going on for days with out it descending into violence.

 

 

Perhaps not here, not in so many words, but it is being justified.

 

 

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/28/baltimores_violent_protesters_are_right_smashing_police_cars_is_a_legitimate_political_strategy/

[Farrar]

Maybe I'm biased because my girls are living right in the middle if the riots but I'll never understand how destroying a CVS and stealing toilet paper and piles or merchandise sheds light on injustice.    T

 

That isn't justice. It's thievery.

 

I totally agree it's not justice. Nor is it a well thought out plan to shed light on justice, though some may hope it will get some attention for justice, most aren't thinking that way. It's people fed up who see no legitimate path open to them, who are harassed and living in a brutally unfair world who think they might as well riot.

 

Instead of raging against those disenfranchised, angry people who stole toilet paper and set fires and threw rocks, I feel like the way to stop them from doing it again is to rage at the people who have been abusing them for years. To many of the young men who participated in the riots, they feel like it's only luck that will keep them from Freddie Gray's fate or a fate like his - they too could be standing on a corner one day doing nothing (and this is not in dispute, he was doing nothing illegal, even according to the police) and then suddenly be abused by the government to the point of death with little recourse. In such a world, who should the people with the power - those of us who aren't abused to such an extent by the system - place our blame? I don't think it belongs with the few rioters and looters. I think they should be held accountable as much as possible, but I don't think they're the ones I want to complain about.

[SKL]

Opportunists come in all colors.

 

If only the media would focus on the people who have a real message, that might help.  It might not stop the violence, but it might stop the violence from drowning out the messages that are worth hearing.

 

I am not a fan of telling young people (via the mass media) that violence and looting is somehow helpful or necessary to make the world a better place.  Which civil rights reform is attributed to violent crime?

[swimmermom3]

Or, perhaps most importantly, escalating things with them. When sports fans riot, the police tends to plan and contain, not antagonize or pen people in or shut down their ways home.

 

No kidding. I am still trying to figure out that whole thing. So the police were tipped off that there was going to be a "purge" by high school students, based on some movie.  They then chose to shut down two transit centers, one of which serves a significant number of high school students?  I am trying to follow the logic or figure out what I am missing. So the goal in trying to prevent violence is to strand inner city young people with few resources without a way home? Two of my kids who are less flexible thinkers would be freaking out and they have cell phones, extra cash, and we could get to them from any part of the city in usually under an hour.

 

I am not excusing what the kids did, but man, there had to be a better way to control that.

 

[Dmmetler]

Evidence tells us that my fair-skinned and standard-English-speaking son is unlikely to be perceived as a criminal and a threat just for existing in public spaces. He is vanishingly unlikely to be shot or beaten by the police when he is unarmed. I don't need to tell him how to act so that he won't get arrested or shot on a trip to Starbucks with his homeschooled friends. That's not a risk he faces. The burly black kid at my homeschool center? Nowhere near as safe. He has to be a lot more careful.

We had an incident recently where the elite cheer team from my DD's program was doing a car wash, and a police officer stopped because he believed the girls were too close to the road. One of the moms related to me how "embarrassed" she was at the coach, because he was "hiding behind the girls" and "not being a man and standing up for them himself".

 

I couldn't believe how unaware she was-the coach of the elite team is one of my former students. At the time he was my student, the school he was attending was in the area with, by far, the most drug traffic and arrests in the entire metropolitan area. It's an area where lives often don't matter, and a young black man can be killed just for walking home from work and being seen as suspicious.

 

There's little doubt in my mind that the coach went to exactly what he'd learned he needed to so to survive-be as quiet, subdued, and inoffensive as possible, agree with everything, and don't push back and that he was, as best he could, trying to protect his team, because while a police officer telling a few teen girls doing a car wash to not stand by the road with their signs seems pretty innocuous to a suburban mom, I can think of at least three incidents off the top of my head where this kid had classmates lose older brothers as a result of altercations with the police, and that's probably very low (since I left that school when he was in 6th grade).

[zoobie]

No, I didn't cheer for her.

 

I admired her for getting her kid off the street and out of danger and for (potentially) stopping one more person from making the situation even worse.

 

I thought the way she went about it was sad and rather ironic, given the whole situation.

I agree. And I couldn't imagine the terror she felt about her son. Finding him. The adrenaline. And now what today? Or tomorrow?

[swimmermom3]

FWIW, I would, but I'm only one person.

 

I just fail to see any justification whatsoever for these kinds of actions. Is this really the lesson we want to teach our kids? If you get mad enough and if people do mean things to you, it's okay to steal and destroy property? My mind is boggled.

 

Good, because I had a few things to say about the Penn State students and that mess.

 

I agree that we don't want to teach our kids that vandalism is okay if people do mean things to us. On the other hand, I am not sure what lessons we are teaching our kids when we turn a blind eye to the police brutality situation and we really do turn a blind eye.

 

I am a middle class white woman in a comfortable suburban neighborhood, but I think if someone kept telling me "Be patient; be peaceful," while the powers that be maimed and killed the young men in my neighborhood, it would be hard to be those things. If I were a young black man in a neighborhood like that of Freddie Gray, how could I wait and wait for change? You only have one life and statistically, theirs will be short.

 

People have choices about taking part in looting or severing the spinal cord of a potential suspect. But people don't always have choices about raising children in slums where their children are seven times as likely to exhibit lead poisoning than the average Baltimore child.  A country that is "exceptional" ought to be able to do something about that. Shattering poverty is where it all starts and who profits from that poverty and we need to address that.

 

[LucyStoner]

I cheered her too.

I wish the police who killed that guy had mothers like that.

Are you talking about the mom who was smacking her son?

 

I'm willing to bet a fair number of police officers and rioters experienced violence at the hands of their parents at one point or another. It doesn't seem to have made things better to me.

[Slojo]

But why? Why would anyone think that???

 

I'll admit that I'm pretty behind on news, generally, because we don't have TV/don't watch the news. The extent of my news I get on fb - I follow one local channel , which is pretty much pointless unless you just want to hear about someone else being in a car accident or police responding to shots fired on ____ st. And then I follow bbc world news so that I get at least a little bit of outside news. Like the earthquake in Nepal, which almost none of my fb friends have taken up fb space to say anything about... But they'll waste it with a status like 'praying for baltimore'... Praying for what, in Baltimore, exactly?

 

Anyway, I did not know anything about this situation until rioting started. But had I known, of course I would find it horrifying!!! Why would anyone think that a fellow human being DOES NOT care?!

 

Here's the problem I have: what can be done to prevent this from happening in the first place? Yeah, yeah, I get it, the system is corrupt and blah blah blah... But what can be done? as a normal, not powerful, citizen of the U.S., do we just have to sit and talk about change while hoping that the powers that be DO something about it?

It frustrates me.

 

Because many individuals - not all - have expressed as much (that, as fellow human beings, they do not care - not that I understand it, but they have indeed expressed as much).  I think that there is enough separation between the worlds of many Americans and many young black youth that the other feels very "foreign" and not particularly relatable. While I do not believe that the majority of people really 'don't care,' I do think that many have voiced fairly callous sentiments -- all the way from those donating to individual police officers who have been under investigation for these incidents as a "contribution to animal control" to individuals who have essentially blamed these individuals for their own murder, with very little introspection as to whether there is any validity to the claim that these incidents are unjust. That against a historic backdrop of slavery, Jim Crow, police brutality, police and judicial cooperation with organized violence against African Americans (think the 1000 lynchings between 1900 - 1960 that were never prosecuted - including those for which there is photo evidence of witnesses), the idea upheld by Supreme Court for decades that "the Negro has no rights that the white man is bound to respect", and the current economic, health and educational disparities that are widening, not narrowing - um, yes, I could imagine how a rational person could get to not being too sure that "their fellow citizens (or enough of their fellow citizens) care about them, their lives or their struggles, challenges or hopes." Now that's vague and abstract, because I don't know most of my fellow citizens - not all 330 million of them - but, yes, from time to time I do wonder about some of them. 

 

As to what you can do individually, educate yourself a bit more about the reality of life for your fellow Americans. You don't have to spend hours and hours of time - this issue is all over the news, and has been for months now.  If you have people of color in your life, you can listen a bit more for how their lives are similar or different from your own, particularly on this issue, as you would for any friend. You can vote for individuals who you think hold views that would be more supportive of a thriving community inclusive of everyone, you can donate to organizations that are providing services to young people in economically struggling areas, you can talk to your children about this issue and work with them to understand the multiple facets of this issue and have compassion for others, you can attend public meetings between the police and community within your town and/or public officials and ask for them to speak to this issue. If you live in Chicago, you're welcome to attend church with me -- we talk about this all the time, and you'll have a very palpable sense of how "the African American community thinks about, processes and discusses" this issue. You can not use "yada, yada..." for such a serious issue (and I noted that you responded later and apologized, which I appreciated); and even if you don't understand it fully - you can see the anguish on the faces of many of your fellow Americans and show empathy. You can respect that at the end of the day the people that you see on TV (not the looters), but the tens of thousands of people who are peacefully protesting, are wanting to see change. That's what you can do. And, slowly, I think that some things will change. I think we are at a historic moment. I really do.