The people now calling for nonviolence are not prepared to answer these questions. Many of them are charged with enforcing the very policies that led to Gray’s death, and yet they can offer no rational justification for Gray’s death and so they appeal for calm. But there was no official appeal for calm when Gray was being arrested. There was no appeal for calm when Jerriel Lyles was assaulted. (“The blow was so heavy. My eyes swelled up. Blood was dripping down my nose and out my eye.”) There was no claim for nonviolence on behalf of Venus Green. (“Bitch, you ain’t no better than any of the other old black bitches I have locked up.”) There was no plea for peace on behalf of Starr Brown. (“They slammed me down on my face,” Brown added, her voice cracking. “The skin was gone on my face.”)
When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is “correct” or “wise,” any more than a forest fire can be “correct” or “wise.” Wisdom isn’t the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the community.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Couldn’t agree more. You guys keep on fighting, you burn the fucking place to the ground if that’s what it takes. That’s the only way things will ever change.
I can’t agree with that. Think of the innocent people who just want to get on with their lives caught up in this mess. Yes, the police involved in the brutality aren’t helping things, but violence just… isn’t the answer. “Burn the place to the ground” if that’s what it takes? Do you hear yourself? I mean, there’s GOT to be a limit on what actions are acceptable in the name of your cause, there just HAS to be. Where exactly do you draw the line?
Where do you draw the line, and show with evidence that the line is effective for social change, in this case the demilitarization of the police, and the beginning of true community policing?
Cliche time! ““Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster…” I believe this is exactly the situation that quote is meant to address.
Yes, we are talking about woefully imbalanced power structures. The police and the government have most of the power, this is a fact, and it’s unfair and should be fought. That changes who’s to blame for starting this whole mess, but people are still in control of how they respond. Violence… I can’t even believe we’re actually supporting violence on THIS site of all places. I think that’s what flabbergasts me the most.
This dynamic is very common. The privileged class injures the oppressed class. This is ignored, considered part of normal, everyday life. The oppressed class starts lashing out in defiance, trying to defend itself or fight back. They are then framed as the assailant, the angry and irrational bad guys, because the initial assaults that they are responding to were erased from the narrative. I have seen this happen in so very many contexts, and it does not always need to be in the form of actual violence either.
All of that is true, but, we’re talking about hurting people and burning down a whole city here. Isn’t it enough to look at that and say, “that’s wrong”? Do I really need to explain why, using nothing but logic and without emotion, THAT is wrong?
What flabbergasts me is you show NO EFFECTIVE WAY FOR SOCIAL CHANGE. Just “don’t do that”.
Try EVIDENCE of what works, and what doesn’t. Forget logic.
My only issue with the violence is that too much of it seems to be directed against other members of the same targeted community.
Smash windows and raise hell if that is what is necessary. But target the precinct houses. Target city hall. Target the bigots and oppressors. But do not target the barbershops and grocery stores owned by people who have also been victimized: that only does the oppressor’s work for them.
Innocent people are caught up in this mess every day, and that will continue until the offenders (the police) is forced into retreat. I would really like it if civil discourse was enough to solve this, but nobody is going to do anything with the core problem unless they are forced into it.
I’m not saying that violence is a good thing, but sometimes it is the lesser of two evils. The police is already waging a war on minorities. This is a matter of meeting violence with violence since nothing else seems to work. Of course you need non-violent opposition as well, but without an angry mob to back you up your words will never amount to much in my experience.
Is “this mess” the innocent people murdered by police? If non-violence isn’t working and politicians and systemic racism making it more and more difficult for them to have a voice at the ballot box, what exactly do you propose is the answer? How much farther do they have to put up with being kicked down?
@1
Non-violence seemed to work well for Martin Luther King and the whole civil rights movement. Are you saying that this situation is somehow more impossible to overcome than publicly endorsed segregation and all the evils tat went along with it? Of course not.
Non-violence is the only path for both sides. There needs to be a huge emphasis for police forces in how to de-escalate situations, de-militarize their approach, and change their Us vs. Them mentality.
Burning down cities isn’t going to do that.
Do I understand the frustration? Absolutely. However, the people who are looting, beating people, and burning things down do not represent their entire community, or the breadth of the response of their community. Many in their own communities do not support their actions.
Dark Jaguar,
I agree with you completely about about hurting (uninvolved) people. As for a heavily armed horde of racist police descending upon you while salivating over the chance to throw you around and injure you with chemical weapons, I can’t possibly criticize a physical response. Violence is wrong. But when protests and demonstrations aren’t working, when appealing to the law itself isn’t working, there’s no way I can sit here with the privilege of not being a black man with a target on my back and tut-tut about those besieged people.
If it takes disruptive rebellion to get the next white police officer to think twice about executing a black man on the street, then it’s worth it. A CVS is not worth even 0.0001% of the life of a human being murdered in broad daylight by his own public servant.
Also, that violence is wrong IS the entire starting point of these protests. These “riots” pale in comparison to the amount of violence the police dishes out and the amount of damage it does to entire communities.
Gregory: Good point, one should choose ones targets with care.
As for my statement of “burning the place to the ground” it was metaphorical, aimed at the system. But if that includes some symbolic buildings, so be it.
What is your solution, Dark Jaguar? The point is not that violence is the answer, the point is that the calls for non-violence are selective and disingenuous, and that the outrage that leads to violence is entirely justified. Why exactly are we wringing our hands more over the cars protesters burn than the people that police brutalize to death? I think there are two clear reasons: We sympathize with the protesters’ cause and want them to represent it better, and because police brutality is so common as to be banal and mundane, while riots are not. Neither are particularly compelling reasons to give an armchair lecture to protesters about the ideal response to police getting away with murder.
To a point, but systemic racism didn’t end and there have been many who have been working diligently over the decades to claw back even the progress that was made then.
Selma did a good job at making that point, about how Non-Violence is a tactic that civil rights movements adopted because it could work (and because there was no chance they could win in violent confrontations), not because they were morally opposed to more violent methods and thought Non-Violence was the only moral way to effect change.
Another good piece from TNC. I’d strongly recommend people read up some of his past writings about the Civil War as well – it provides some great context when he writes about resistance and change in the present.
@Gregory in Seattle
That bothered me as well. Most of the stores looted and wrecked earlier this week were in neighborhoods that are already desperate for more jobs and business, with tons of abandoned storefronts and homes. I don’t think CVS is going anywhere (they’re likely insured), but smaller businesses?
liz321:
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2014/11/25/what-would-mlk-say/
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2014/11/25/what-would-mlk-say/comment-page-1/#comment-883430
That’s great. Get into a powerful political position and start doing that. Instead of the typical political response of whining about Both Sides and doing nothing to address the problem of police brutality that these protests are fucking about. Oh, but you are also blaming Both Sides too, aren’t you? Go figure.
Also I see it took a whole two posts for someone to start tut tuting with the usual bullshit. I expected it to be the first post.
‘Shame on them for not being quiet and peaceful while we treat them as subhuman scum and let them be murdered with impunity by any cop or random asshole who says the magic words ‘self defense’. Instead they should try peaceful protests like the one currently being ignored by the media in Baltimore or all the other ones before it that were completely ignored and accomplished nothing.’
Don’t like copypasting but here’s what I wrote on my own tumblr:
“It’s easy to condemn acts in isolation – “violence is never the answer” “oh my god they’re looting a liquor store!” – but much harder to look at the broader picture and think “why did this happen and how can it be prevented”. Fire a pithy “violence is wrong” and you can cavort away in smug self-righteousness, ignoring what lead to it in the first place.
Nothing is going to change until we stop taking the easy way out.”
Everybody preaching nonviolence needs to show some non violent way to effectively change things.
Though I’m also not a fan of cheering on people risking their lives from the safety of an armchair.
@anteprepro #15 – “The point is not that violence is the answer, the point is that the calls for non-violence are selective and disingenuous, and that the outrage that leads to violence is entirely justified.”
This.
@liz321 #12 – One night of violence has brought the kind of attention that the six days of peaceful protests could not. Had the protests remained peaceful, there would be little in the local news and absolutely nothing on the national news. Like it or not, the rioting in Baltimore has put the story out there in a way that would have been impossible without it. In the long run, that is good.
@antepro
And what exactly is your solution after everything gets burned down? Please tell me what wonderful repercussions that’s going to have? The world will suddenly be a less racist, less divided place free of all evil? There will be no more police brutality ever?
Your “solution” is not a solution.
It’s just like all those stupid “I hope that guy gets raped in prison” comments that show up when someone who does something horrible gets sent to jail.
@ 20
Nobody commenting here is ignoring what led to it in the first place.
Re MLK and non-violence:
Not that I’m very well versed in that history, but wasn’t there a shitload of violence and riots as well? Wasn’t there an implicit threat of more violence if they didn’t take advantage of the “cease-fire” that MLK provided?
I don’t necessarily believe that violence alone will work, but it can be a very potent motivator for more peaceful solutions. Start by a show of force, show them that you are not only are capable of destroying EVERYTHING, but that you WILL tear the place apart unless your demands are met. Then you can start talking.
The thing is, the police brutality isn’t the whole picture, either. It’s just one of the issues going on in that city. Look at where the riots started- neighborhoods that have as high as 20% unemployment where more than half of all households earn less than $25,000 per year. Neighborhoods where banks will refuse to give you a loan just because of your address. Neighborhoods that are deliberately passed over for urban renewal projects by the city.
It’s not just the cops, it’s the whole fucking system that triggered these riots.
http://chrisbrecheen.blogspot.com/2015/04/controlling-narrative-case-study-in.html
Here’s something else that Dr. King said:
I was just listening to the news on the radio and the discussion was on this issue and the interviewee ended with a question about how were the police going to “control society.”
If that is indeed what the authorities think is the job of the police is in practice that is a long way from protect and serve that so many hold up as their motto.
There is a contradiction between ideas of freedom, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and the ideas of controlling society and the war on drugs and zero tolerance policies.
what is missing in this is the idea of “We the People”. Without that idea in effect tolerance is missing, populations are seen as separate units, othering is inevitable and abuse goes unnoticed. resulting in shooting down “suspects” in the street and years in solitary confinement in prison.
Is this any different from the conditions that proceeded the French Revolution, or the Russian Revolution?
uncle frogy
Liz321
What
Is
Your
Solution?
And don’t give me that “non violence is the only path” crap because by now it’s become abundantly clear that the police won’t stop and that the courts won’t check them.
I think some of the people here are missing the point of the article. The point of Coates’ piece wasn’t that violence is the only answer for oppression, its that the violence happening now is a symptom of the much larger disease of systemic oppression that Baltimore has had in place for years. Blame for this falls squarely at the feat of the police and there enablers, who have tried to ignore the problem and now are calling for some AstroTurf nonviolence campaign to control a situation without addressing the root problem.
That being said, I don’t think most of the violence that went on in Baltimore from the people’s end was being organized towards any sort of political end goal. It was just people angrily lashing out at a system that failed them. That might not be the most ideal response, but I haven’t lived under the heel of an oppressive police state because of the color of my skin, so I’m not going to lecture someone who has on what they should or should not do when they decide enough is enough.
About MLK and non-violence: The level of anger is too great right now to be directed, and it is being expressed as rage. That rage will burn out, and it will be possible for community leaders to step up and direct the anger to more productive ends. This is what Dr. King did.
However, calls for non-violence from outside the community are counterproductive. The community must raise their own leaders, otherwise it is just another situation of outsiders putting “uppity” people in their places “for their own good and the good of society.” That response from us outsiders will only pour fuel on the fire.
@ 22–Gregory
Agreed that it has brought urgency to the situation and demanded more attention. So should it continue unabated?
I do feel that these last few incidents of police brutality are showing evidence of change. What has happened in Ferguson and NYC had a huge impact on the response of police depth. The incident in South Carolina where Walter Scott was murdered brought immediate condemnation. The incident in Baltimore Had the police chief front and center saying that things were wrong with what happened to Freddie Gray all along the way.
Where previously departments have brushed things under the rug or reflexively covered for offending officers, now police chiefs are scared. They are responding to public sentiment. They know that the public is no longer willing to tolerate the brutality being exposed or give the police department the benefit of the doubt.
Protests and media coverage and discussion is working.
liz321: The riots send a message. That message is “we are mad as hell and we are not gonna take it anymore”. Either this leads to social and political change, it doesn’t and people like yourself discourage and demonize rioters and things fizzle, or things get “burned down” and we try to build something new up from the ashes. The alternative is the current state of affairs. The status quo sounds nice and comfortable and appealing and all, but that’s only if you ignore all the people being oppressed and killed by it. A very convenient ignorance, but it is ignorance nonetheless. So yes, cry out about the violence of the protesters, while doing no such thing about the everyday violence performed as part of the operations of our society. Feel free.
But anyway, for those that didn’t want to follow the links, here is MLK on rioting
liz321 @ 12
It worked quite well, what with him getting shot in the fucking face and all.
People clearly need to scroll back up and re-read what Ta-Nehisi Coates said, because it seems like a whole bunch of folks are missing it. Here, to make it easy:
A riot may not be the answer if you think the question was “what will fix this?”
Looks to me more like the question, as it has ever been, is “how far can murder committed by agents of the state and white supremacy and grinding poverty push people before they break?”
my earlier comment should read “police depts.”
liz321,
And what’s yours? 20% more signage? Use more “please” and “thank you’s”?
Please tell me what wonderful repercussions that’s going to have. The world will suddenly be a less racist, less divided place free of all evil? There will be no more police brutality ever?
Your “solution” is not a solution.
I don’t think anyone here has said this is definitely a solution. I’m saying I can’t and won’t blame them. You tell me what a people are supposed to do when their government is firmly against them, appealing to law isn’t working, demonstrating isn’t working, and the clock is ticking to the next black human being’s public execution.
@ Liz321:
You’re missing the point, everything is NOT going to get burned down. This is a fight between those who have next to nothing versus those that have more than they will ever need. The side with the most to loose will back down eventually, as long as you don’t listen to their insincere cry for parley.
liz321, #32
… because of the fucking video that a civilian had to make. Do you know what the police’s response was before the video surfaced?
What a beautiful fantasy world you live in.
Over a Mano Singhams blog a commenter has one of the rioters as saying that they tried peaceful protesting for 3 days and no one bothered to notice, only after the rioting started did the issue get attention beyond the usual platitudes offered.
I’m sorry, no.
Understanding rioting as a part of the larger picture is one thing, defending it as a tactic is something else entirely. Rioting is inexcusable, unnecessary, and counterproductive.
You want to show disrespect? Show disrespect. Violence is not disrespect. Violence is violence.
You don’t get to do what the hell you want because you’re angry. Theft doesn’t become moral because you’re angry. Arson doesn’t become moral because you’re angry. You’re still responsible for your own actions. You don’t get to evade moral responsibility just because you’re frustrated.
Big Boppa #27
Yes! Thank you.
@ antepro
I haven’t demonized anyone. You’re the one hurling hyperbole all over the place. I understand some of the violence. It works as a temporary attention grabber and after that is totally ineffective.
Several commenters keep saying calls for non-violence have to come from the inside of the community and keep equating the looters with the community at large. You seem to be ignoring the fact that very many people from this community are calling for non-violence, that very many people from this very community have been setting themselves up in front of the police to protect them from violence.
You are ignoring the majority of this community and pretending that only those in government are calling for non-violence.
It isn’t the case.
Also, other thread on the subject of the Baltimore riots:
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2015/04/28/the-right-wing-responds-to-baltimore/
Epiphany I had in the other thread (not sure if it is accurate or not though
The quote I refer to from the teacher describing the buses being stopped follows:
A militarized police force cracking down on protests and the general populace in a suppressive and excessive manner in the wake of questionable threats, agitating a populace already upset and fearful of police excesses in the wake of brutal killing by a police member who will likely not see justice, in a community that is heavily affected by inequality around economic and racial lines. It’s almost like it is a familiar story. It is almost like there is not only a legitimate grievance, but also that the police were actively making the situation fucking worse, through intention or sheer incompetence.
People often forget the MLK style non-violence wasn’t some lovey Teddy Bear nonsense, it was a calculated tactic designed to elicit specific responses from authorities. He and the other people in the Black Freedom struggle were explicitly breaking laws and goading authorities into overreach to show how unjust the system they were protesting was.
jedibear:
Not moral is not the same as immoral. And again, your examples make it explicit: this is more concern for property than people.
@44
I agree. However, some of these comments seem to equate non-violence with “roll over and let the government do whatever the hell it wants to you.”
Coates is spot on. The users of violence are calling for non-violence, calling for “cooperation” when they mean capitulation, asking for abeyance when they want obedience.
Violence is the last resort of protesters. It’s what they do when they have tried all legally and socially acceptable remedies, and nothing has worked. No authority has listened, no court given them justice.
Violence is the first resort of cops. They do it because they can use illegal and socially unacceptable violence, and nobody challenges it. No authority has listened to the victims of cop violence, no court given them justice.
Is it any surprise that the public in Baltimore have had enough, that they view the “authorities” as the enemy and a threat to social order?
If you want to ignore this and get on with your life, you are not an innocent person.
Innocent people have been murdered. What about the lives they’ll never get on with? If this does not stop, how many more innocent people will die?
Liz321
WTF?
People are still getting fucking killed by the fucking police and unless there is a video showing it nobody gives a fuck.
Police are killing 7 year old girls in their beds because they are raiding the fucking wrong apartment and then the courts say “shit happens”. Do you have a 7 year old daughter? Or a 12 year old son? I do, and fortunately I don’t have to worry about them being murdered in their beds or at the playground. So don’t tell the people who have to fear for their children’s lives how to behave.
@jedibear:
There is violence on both sides. On one side, systematic violence leading to the unnecessary deaths of over 100 people by the institution that is supposed to protect them. On the other, angry riots causing mostly property damage, and mainly when provoked by police response.
Which violence do you condemn first? Which violence do you condemn loudest? Which violence do you ignore until you get the opportunity to make a “both sides do it” argument?
The riots are just the more visible violence to outsiders. If your main objection is to the visible violence, then you are basically saying that you simply want the violence to become invisible again, not that you want anything to be solved.
aarrgghhh
yes!! we all agree that violence is BAD.
BUT.
To yell at the rioters for committing violent acts while completely ignoring the violence that motivated them is WORSE.
analogy time: it’s like yelling at a rape victim for punching the rapist (during the rape), while ignoring the rape, and calling the rapist a victim of a violent attack by his target.
isn’t there a name for this, “Victim blaming”?
Liz321
So, are you a part of that community?
If not, kindly STFU about what they should or shouldn’t do.
liz321@42:
Did an investigation into the Ferguson police department, the revelation of massive, systematic racism, and a serious attempt to overhaul the system, start before or after the riots?
liz321: I have no idea how to even respond to your 42. Too many points must have been missed, because I can’t even begin to determine where you might have gone astray. First of all, “everything gets burned down” is your hyperbole, not mine. You are the one insisting that people are “conflating” “looters” with the community and claiming that we are ignoring community members calling for no violence. No, we are doing no such thing. No, we are not even advocating or condoning violence here. We are simply saying that violence is an understandable reaction. It is certainly not an ideal or preferred one, but it is one that makes sense in their situation because they have been effectively goaded into it. And we are also admitting that non-violence is not the perfect solution. Invoking the Civil Rights Movement as an example is ignoring that there WERE violent protests as well, and it is also ignoring that the modern day person most associated as the grand heroic leader of that movement said virtually the same thing we are saying now regarding riots. Those who cannot help but condemn the riots in the name of righteousness are defending the status quo, for reasons already amply explained. There are lots of double standards in play here as well, in all the indignant furor about the evils of riots: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/11/white-people-rioting-for-no-reason.html
I await your continued missing of points.
*the “public” revelation of massive, systematic racism and corruption
I see this point cropping up quite a bit lately and I’m not a fan of it, mostly because it implies that if MLK was more violent in his rhetoric or actions he would have avoided assassination. The fates of activists like Malcolm X and Fred Hampton show otherwise.
You go against the system publicly on a regular basis, you risk that system coming down on you an destroying you, violent or non-violent.
@49 Gillel
Yes..people are getting fucking killed. And guess what, even with violent riots people are still going to be fucking killed. People will be fucking killed until bad cops are hunted down and prosecuted, not protected, not excused, not taken at their word. And…the only way to fight that is not with violence but with recording every damn incident that ever happens, making life difficult for them, legally pursuing them, changing the level of legal accountability they are held to and making people who behave like them social pariahs.
You don’t need to harm people in your own community to do that.
I’m so sick of hearing how violence is only dangerous if the oppressed are fighting back.
It’s like how taxing the rich is called class warfare while having more poor black people in prison than live in some small countries is not.
Civility in the face of oppression is what the oppressors want. It is what the abusive rely on. The US government bombs hospitals for “peace”, but expects non-violence from it’s own people in the face of ongoing, systemic, violence. What entitled hypocrisy.
Did an investigation into the Ferguson police department, the revelation of massive, systematic racism, and a serious attempt to overhaul the system, start before or after the riots?
THIS!
Should these rioters simpered quietly? Do you think these riots made life worse for the communities that stod up to their oppressers?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_riots
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots
Were none of these US riots for the greater good?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_United_States
Liz321
You show how that change is achieved before you go tut-tuing people who fight. Eric Garner’s death was on video, still no indictment.
pyromancer,
Way to miss an obvious point.
The point is not that violence would have saved King. It is that non-violence didn’t.
Tur-tuting….yeah, this word keeps getting used. So for everyone who thinks that calls for non-violence are simply tut-tutting from a distance and who thinks that violence is a good catalyst for social change and an effective solution…you’d better be packing you bags and getting to Baltimore and participating in the violence and looting there.
If you don’t then you are no better than the people you are attempting to mock, encouraging violence and looting from a distance while you don’t have to face jail time, or tear gas, or rubber bullets.
Any of you who keep saying these are good tactics need to ask yourselves if you would participate in them. If you’re not willing to do it, then you really have no grounds to pretend as if you are some awesome revolutionary leading the oppressed in violent change.
At the end you are simply a commenter sharing an opinion from a computer, as am I .
You don’t need to harm people in your own community to do that.
What people in that community are being harmed? A CVS is not a person. Tamir Rice was a person. He was a little boy. You are rebuking people’s efforts to save the lives of children.
Let me ask you something. If go full on Leatherface and come at your kid with a chainsaw, you gonna ask me nicely to stop? What if you already saw me chainsaw down several other children first? Are you telling me you’d believe that I’d quit this time if someone asks me to despite the pleas of those I had killed before being ignored?
What if I’d been killing kids for hundreds of years and the killing only slowed down when I was forced to stop?
If these were people you cared about being murdered and blamed for their own murdered, you’d sing a different tune.
If white people were being treated like this rioters would be hailed as heroes.
People have tried covert and overt revolutionary violence in the US before and it didn’t work. The people in power just kill them.
Forgot to block quote. Sorry.
@Chris J #50:
This!
Skipped a blockquote in 59 too. Oops
liz321 continues to lecture about tactics. Because apparently they have solved all the world’s problems and have the objective, and exclusive, set of directions to reach those goals. Thank you, liz321, for ensuring that we adhere to your strict guidelines that are the one and only true path to a better future. Bless your heart, our savior.
Liz321
May I quote myself all the way up at 21:
Oops…
Better that than to be a victim blamer and bootlicker for racist cops.
One good thing I learned in church was not to be a coat-holder.
Definition: Someone who stands by and hold the coats of the men stoning innocents to death.
All those coats you’re holding are gonna get heavy, Liz321.
Dear White America: Please Stop Talking About Martin Luther King Jr. and the Baltimore ‘Riots’ from Chauncey Devega at DailyKos
qwints @ 64 wrote…
Nope. It didn’t work. Not at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stonewall_riots
@ 68
blah, blah, blah…really just words to try and belittle those you don’t agree with. You twisted everything I have said, adding to it, claiming that I have implied it’s going to solve all the worlds problems, that I am the savior to a better future….blah, blah blah.
All attempts to pretend as if there is really only one solution, and it’s yours. So tiring.
Saad, #38, and liz321, #32:
Police are working overtime to correct this situation, by introducing new legislation to ban videotaping of police.
Any of you who keep saying these are good tactics need to ask yourselves if you would participate in them. If you’re not willing to do it, then you really have no grounds to pretend as if you are some awesome revolutionary leading the oppressed in violent change.
What the actual fuck? First, I’d love to protest but I can’t. If a cop pepper sprays me in the face I will die. Fear of being murdered is what keeps me home and the police know this. It is a feature, not a bug. You’re on the wrong side if you don’t support violence.
I can’t leave my kids, but if I take them with me and a cop kills them I will be blamed for “putting them at risk”. These cops are shot a pregnant woman’s eye out for sitting in a car to close to protests in Ferguson. The war is already happening. You only just now noticed it because people are fighting back.
You’re the one pretending. You’re pretending to be taking moral high ground. You aren’t.
@74
Some are trying to ban it, some want to embrace it. Many departments are actually pursuing body cameras for their own protection and self-policing.
Why have I stopped blockquoteing? Why?
My brains, they are turning to mush.
“Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit; so let it be done!” –John Brown
“His zeal in the cause of freedom was infinitely superior to mine. Mine was as the taper light, his was as the burning sun. Mine was bounded by time. His stretched away to the silent shores of eternity. I could speak for the slave. John Brown could fight for the slave. I could live for the slave. John Brown could die for the slave. ” — Frederick Douglass on John Brown
Violence is not always wrong. Sometimes violence is the only answer left. I am not black, and I do not have the zeal of John Brown–but neither will I criticize the black people for rising up against injustice.
@ 75
Non-violence does not equal not protesting. I am challenging people defending violence as a tactic to get out there and crack some heads, not simply protest.
Liz321,
Body cameras won’t solve shit. They are not a panacea.
Now answer the questions rather than pretending I didn’t ask them. Or is burying your head in the sand how you handle everything?
Also, would you mind terribly telling us if you are black? I suspect strongly that you are not. Are you in fact one more white person whitesplaining to black people how to respond to racism?
The people cracking heads are called cops, Liz321. Setting some cars on fire is not “cracking heads”.
Now answer the questions and actually look at the links provided. This is not a monologue for Liz. Back up your argument if you can or make like a tree and fuck off.
liz321,
Why the everloving fuck would you think there aren’t ongoing attempts to also do this? You think right after each of the racist murders, crowds immediately erupted into property damage. Also, do you not see the thousands of people peacefully protesting? No, your attention goes to the fucking CVS.
And LOL @ legally pursuing them. HahahaHAHA!
Not sure if mind-blowingly naive or just fucking racist.
Jackie, #70
I love that. Added to vocabulary.
Jackie, #77
Don’t worry. It’s beginning to have that effect on me too.
Liz, what kinds of support have you given to non-violent protesters? What have you done to protest these killings?
I kinda doubt you’ve been the ally you are painting yourself to be.
liz #76:
No, they’re really not. Most departments want body cameras so they can control and selectively erase or edit the footage, which they can’t do with private surveillance or bystander cameras; and officers can shut them off just before they engage in a bit of
entertainmentbrutality. As for internal investigations, police don’t bother to discipline their own *now*, except for harassing and driving out whistleblowers. How are they going to self-police any differently with access to the bodycams of the whistleblowers?Here’s a resource thread; do some searching for mentions of cameras. Reagan’s morning in America
liz321 #79
When the best you can do is
you’ve lost.
Bless your heart.
@Jackie
You are full of shit.
First you say you can’t protest, but that wasn’t what I said. I challenged violence promoters to go out and do violence. So your excuses have nothing to do with what I actually said.
Second, I am white. And that does not invalidate me from having an opinion. And I am assuming a lot of people on this thread are white too. And yet the people who lined up in front of Baltimore police to protect them are black. They believe in non-violence, but their actions don’t count do they? The many black leaders calling for non-violence don’t count either, do they? Freddie Gray’s own family’s cries for non-violence don’t count either, do they?
Stop pretending that it’s just white government leaders against violence and looting. It isn’t the case.
If you want to assume that everything I say is just an extension of white privilege so that you can ignore it and feel better about your opinion, you’re free to do so….but it is not just white people who believe in non-violence.
liz321
The irony in the air was thick that night.
Just shut the fuck up already, liz.
liz321, #57
Eric Garner’s killing is on video.
Tamir Rice’s killing is on video.
John Crawford III’s killing is on video.
Comments?
Historically, riots have a very poor record of bringing about useful change, and they do have a very good record of resulting in harm to the rioters. The direct victims of property and bodily harm are hardly ever the people the rioters are angry with. I don’t think it’s possible to regard riots as a good thing. And in the case of the US (correct me if I’m wrong) policing is organized at state or city level. Even if the riot led to beneficial change in Baltimore, every other district could carry on as before.
What’s needed is a whole lot of research and organized systematic activism on an individual and collective level. This doesn’t seem the best atmosphere in which to brainstorm ideas, but you can probably all think of a few anyway.
Hi. As you all might know, I am an adopted Baltimorean. Having been here for 15 years, working in the heart of the city on the border between downtown and the west side, I can honestly say I’m not the slightest bit shocked by what has occurred here. This shit has been simmering. Baltimore was (and still is) a powder keg primed to explode. A very divided city where the differences between the affluent white neighborhoods* and the poor black neighborhoods are shocking and sad. It was only a matter of time and I, for one, am not going to stand here and lecture or point fingers at the people who rioted. You should see the shit they have to deal with daily.
*Yes, I live in one. It was creepy as hell how my general area (North-Central Baltimore) felt like nothing out of the ordinary was going on whilst the worst of the violence was happening. Two different Baltimores indeed.
liz321:
1. No one said there are no people in Baltimore advocating or practicing non-violence.
2. No one said non-violence is a bad thing: it is just often NOT ENOUGH, and the specter of non-violence shouldn’t be used to invalidate those who used “violence” (i.e. self defense and/or property destruction) during the protest.
3. No one said that is just the government calling against violence.
4. You cannot fucking read.
5. Shut the fuck up already.
@85
OH please…of course I don’t want people to commit violence. I am merely repeating the same argument back to people who keep demanding that cries for non-violence are simply tut-tutting. If i’m tut-tutting, so are commenters who talk about the effectiveness of violence yet would never lift a finger to hurt anybody themselves. It’s disingenuous.
Oh, Liz.
Shut the fuck up. Your desperate attempt to avoid facts that refute your view is noted. You are clueless, racist* and have no business demanding anything of anyone. Go tut-tut elsewhere.
*Yes, racist. You assume without educating yourself that those silly black folks haven’t tried to do anything at all about racism and oppression and just suddenly started setting shit on fire. You think you, in all of your white wisdom know better than they do. THAT is bullshit. Yes, your opinion is invalid. Invalid and vapid.
@ 91
No. You’re the one who needs to read. This whole comment thread is full of people who have advocated violence and reduced non-violence to bending over and taking it from the government.
For you to say that No One said those things is ridiculous.
liz321, #86
Oh my god, how are you not getting this?
The protesters’ calls for non-violence count.
The police and the government’s calls for non-violence are silencing attempts. They don’t count.
I support nonviolent protesting. I oppose violence and destruction. Up to the point where nonviolent protesting works. Over the past year (and before that) it has proven to not work. It has also been proven that white police officers murder black people. It’s what they do.
In light of these facts, I will not oppose physical opposition. Doing so makes you a callous (and either ignorant or racist, pick one) asshole.
Please, liz, cite those comments. I am sure the exercise will be entertaining.
I just realized I’ve directed five posts to liz321 without a single reply from xir. Is it the avatar? Whatever. Jackie, you’re doing much better anyway.
@93
No Jackie. Everything you say is what you have told yourself in your head. I haven’t called anyone in Baltimore silly, I haven’t demonized them, I haven’t even condemned the people who looted. GO back and read my comments. It’s not there. That’s a story you are telling yourself about me in your head.
All I said is that violence is not an effective or good way to bring about real change. It’s not going to ultimately help this community. An attention-grabber…sure. A long-term solution that will ultimately benefit this community, No.
And I have repeated that those who looted do not represent their entire community no matter how much you want to ignore the fact.
Saad, if it makes you feel better, she has been paying lots of attention to me, but her replies have been so incoherent and disconnected from reality that she might as well have been replying to someone else. You ain’t missing much.
Monitor Note
Liz321
Use people’s chosen nym when addressing them.
You know, there were white people who said the Civil War was uncalled for because if you gave white people long enough and asked them nicely enough, they’d just stop enslaving people.
Not withstanding the fact that was never going to happen it is illustrative of white attitudes then and how little they have changed. Generations of black Americans would still have lived in slavery under their scheme to peacefully resolve slavery. That was fine by them. A war would hurt white people. Simply sitting back and doing nothing merely hurt black people.
The more things change…
Also, most of the *black* people calling for nonviolence, including those clergy who trained protesters in nonviolent techniques last night, the Crips and Bloods who called a truce, and the random citizens throwing their bodies between protesters and armed riot cops, are doing it largely because they don’t want more of their friends and neighbors getting beaten and killed that night. By an occupying force that’s massively overpowered for dealing with them and has members looking for any excuse, too. Not just because there’s something precious or effective about not breaking windows.
Saad,
That’s not new. Trolls commonly ignore people who don’t speak to them in a way they can get bent out of shape about. When you get in their face, they have to deal with you. The facade of civility falls away.
Kinda like how the media and government treat protesters, isn’t it?
Saad,
I didn’t mean “that’s not news” disrespectfully, but reading it, it sounds that way. I just mean that it has been noticed here over and over again.
…and thank you.
liz321, your gaslighting and dishonesty have been noted.
Care to answer the questions now or would you prefer to fuck off into the sunset?
Boom.
@102 Why do you mark out black people as *black* people in your comment? Is there some question about their blackness in your mind? And I find it condescending that you seem to think that you know what their “real” motives are for preaching non-violence.
Way to completely dismiss an entire group of people and their efforts. You basically imply that they could only have self-preservation in mind and don’t really believe in non-violence as a principle.
MONITOR NOTE
LIZ321
From the Blog rules:
I look at Gaza today. I look at black neighborhoods in the US.
I see so much similarity.
Has anyone else here ever seen Closetland? The older I get, the more it rings true. From oppressing one person to oppressing many, is not a major leap.
liz321@107:
That was emphasis, distinguishing the black people who call for nonviolence from the white people. Asterisks are not scare quotes.
@Saad, if I haven’t replied to you it’s simply because everyone is upset by my comments and I can’t possibly reply to them all.
I find this whole comment thread mired in hyperbole and demands. Everyone else who advocated for non-violence has seemingly left the conversation and being the object of ire simply because I believe in non-violence as a general life principle is..well troubling to me.
I don’t believe in non-violence only in these protests. I believe in non-violence between parents and children, between spouses/partners, etc. I have seen and experienced enough violence and retaliation up close and personal in my own life that I will not condone violence as an effective means for progress.
I would kill someone actively trying to kill me if I had to. I would fight off a rapist. I would protect myself in an assault. I would not commit violence outside of these immediate types of situations.
I would not burn down the house of someone who wronged me horribly. I would not slash the tires of a cheating partner. I would not steal from someone who I thought deserved it.
And….I wouldn’t encourage anyone else to either.
Liz321, for the love of sweet, fuzzy, kittens stop trying gotchas. You aren’t good at it. That was emphasis, not removal.
Now, if you are finished avoiding the questions asked of you, we’d all like to see you attempt a coherent response that contains at least a hint of truth. Can you do it?
“I’m not racist. You’re racist, because of asterisks !” – Liz321
They are being raped murdered and assaulted, Liz321! FFS.
@ Gilell
Don’t you have something better to do than play comment police?
Seriously, the pettiness of this comment thread and all of the demands to say this or prove that, or shut the fuck up…it’s mind-blowing. So many of you can’t stand that someone disagrees with you. The mocking, the condescension, the dismissiveness, the name-calling.
Petty, petty bullshit.
Liz321, you are not abiding by the TOS. You will be banned if you continue. Since you didn’t read it, it has been pointed out to you as a courtesy.
You should thank Gilell. She was extending you a kindness.
@114 Jackie
Lol..you really think you are something, don’t you?
He/she is not racist because of asterisks. He/she is racist because he/she completely dismissed an entire group of people’s efforts and work as not really being “real”.
I don’t mind disagreement. I have learned alot from people correcting my ignorance. I just don’t suffer fools.
If you hate it here so much, why don’t walk away?
@ 117 Jackie.
If PZ wants to ban me…he can feel free to do so. Last I checked, you are not PZ. But thanks so much for your caring comments and the wish that I continue this fruitful discussion with you. It has truly been such a pleasure for me.
Liz321@111:
Notice how every single one of your hypotheticals is about some harm personally being done to you, as an individual. Police brutality is not a campaign against individuals, it is against a group. Even if the protesters themselves were never personally targeted, they were part of the targeted group.
What do you do when structured violence is perpetrated against a group defined to include you? What do you do when every unjust murder could very easily have been you or your loved ones had the cosmic dice rolled differently? What do you do when the people in power you have to appeal to to protest the systematic violence are the ones perpetuating it, and what do you do when they turn that violence on you as soon as you speak up too loudly?
“Riots are the language of the unheard.” Somehow, I think you keep forgetting that last part, “unheard.”
liz321 cannot engage. Either due to dishonesty or incompetence. Hyperbole and petty, petty bullshit, indeed.
@120 Chris J
I don’t know what I would do. But I do know what I would’t do. I wouldn’t kill people and burn down buildings of those not involved.
And…I wouldn’t encourage other people to to do that either.
Non-violence is not equal to non-action.
Liz321,
Baby, you ain’t seen nuthin yet. I could open the book of you and read it page by page. You’ve already told me so much and it would not be difficult for me to learn more. If I decided to read your beads, you’d know it.
You are either extremely dishonest or extremely stupid. The only racist here is you. You are fooling no one. You are making no points. You present no facts and use no logic. Gimme a coherent argument and let’s see how fast I can rip it up? Want to?
We can do that.
Just skim the fucking links and stop trying to deflect attention away from how miserably wrong you are.
Ready, set, go?
@121 anteprepro
blah, blah, blah, some more ad hominem, blah blah, blah, more dismissiveness, blah, blah blah extra hyperbole, blah, blah, blah.
Anyone else mildly bothered by the framing around “disrespect”?
AFAIC, it goes so far beyond “disrespect” it’s not even funny…but I guess that’s as “angry” as a mainstream voice like Coates’s is allowed to be…
Or possibly the term disrespect has so much less baggage for my privileged self than for him that it has an almost completely different definition in my mind?
I understand the reasons for violence but has violence really worked? Did the police in LA change after the LA riots? There were riots in Baltlimore in 1968. Did it cause any changes? Violence will get a person heard but will it lead to change? And those arguing for violence, you need to ask the people in Baltimore what they want. There are areas of Baltimore that are food deserts because no business wants to move to those areas. Riots just make that worse.
The questions to ask was why did the Civil rights movement work then? What made it possible to have a civil rights movement then. Why didn’t it happen earlier? What was happening in society that allowed civil rights to progress? What can we do now that is effective and doesn’t have to rely on violence?
Liz321
Um. It’s petty to expect you to actually defend your position as opposed to repeating ad nauseum? Today I learned.
Hey, liz, what happened to you invoking MLK? You dropped that talking point like a hot potato. It’s almost like you actually were able to read and understand the refutations you received on that topic! And yet didn’t bother to acknowledge it. Not even with a “blah blah blah” or “hyperbole” or whatever handwaving bullshit you are doing. Intriguing.
The “threat” came from Malcolm X. LBJ understood that he’d have to deal with one or the other, and MLK was the only one willing to sit down at the table.
(emphasis mine)
Liz,
Who is not involved in ignoring the police brutality black Americans have endured since…forever?
I’ll admit it. I’m involved. I’ve displayed horrible ignorance and apathy toward bigotry and I am ashamed that I did. I didn;t mean to, but that is how privilege works. I didn’t see what did not harm me. I was and can still unintentionally be part of the problem. I do not tell black Americans how to protest because I have no right to do so. When it comes to fighting racism they are the authorities, not me. I shut up and listen and you need to too.
Since when are the Baltimore protesters killing people?
karmacat:
That rather misses the point. People aren’t so much arguing for violence as much as arguing against those arguing against violence. In that, violence is neither condemned nor condoned, precisely because it IS a question of what the people in Baltimore want, and what they feel they want or need to do to get to the change that they desire. It is precisely because “what people in Baltimore want” is a complicated question, expressed by both those stressing non-violence and those resorting to violence (or “violence”) for whatever variety of reasons, that there is stress against condemning the rioters, from the vantage point as outsiders looking in.
@128 Antepro…
I dropped it because nobody here cares about MLK or the way he achieved his goals. Everyone basically dismissed MLK and anyone bringing him up. Why argue about the importance of his methods when bringing it up immediately devolves into..”Oh I was just waiting for some white person to bring MLK into this!”
He apparently has no influence on this group of commenters.
MLK says he understood and sympathized with rioters. I understand and sympathize with the frustration of rioters too. But, what did MLK actually DO? He protested…NON-VIOLENTLY. He may have understood rioters but he sought a better way…a more effective way.
Karmacat,
I think being heard is a huge change. What can be accomplished without that?
@ 131 Chris J
They aren’t killing anyone.. However, they have injured quite a few and once you begin to commit physical violence then you have to accept the possibility that you might unintentionally kill someone instead of just hurting home, breaking some bones. People who incite violence are creating situations where someone eventually might be killed. If you burn down a building you are taking the risk that there might be someone in that building.
You can’t promote violence and then assume that no-one is actually going to be killed.
“some” not home
Chris J:
Cars are people too.
liz321: So in other words, you didn’t understand any of the people who responded to you in regards to MLK? Yeah, I am hardly surprised. But that is great that you can characterize the response to you as MLK “apparently has no influence on this group of commenters”. Pure fucking class, liz. Pure fucking class.
Liz321
More angsty moralizing and aggrandizement, replete with bullshit that hasn’t happened. Who was killed by those involved in the rioting that occurred?
liz321:
And with that, liz does argue to dissolve all police forces across the nation.
Liz321
Who is promoting violence? Who is condoning violence? Specific quotes would be helpful.
@Liz321:
You need to read this before you start talking about what you would or wouldn’t have done had you been in the same situation as the people in Baltimore. Become aware of where your narrative of their actions is starting and stopping, and how accurate it is, before passing judgement.
If, after you understand the whole situation, the violence is still unpalatable for you, then frame it this way. You don’t want people to feel that riots are the only way to get anything done. Therefore, you should be advocating that they stop being the unheard, start telling people to listen when black people say that the police are killing them senselessly.
Demanding that people stop rioting without proving that it isn’t necessary is useless.
Just started reading this thread, but I’ve gotten through the first 10 comments, and I have to say Dark Jaguar this site isn’t supporting or endorsing violence. Erlend Meyer, I don’t think ‘burning it to the ground’ is going to be helpful at all. It certainly wouldn’t help the people in the city who are protesting, nor would it be helpful to the people who are going about their everyday lives.
Also, Nerd, could you please find a new way to say “show with evidence”? Sheesh. Sometimes you’re a broken record.
liz321 @ 133
Actually, what people did was quote MLK saying that white moderates like you who make the exact argument you’re making are a bigger hurdle to equality than the openly racist.
@139 antepro
Oh..you know me so well. How would I know what the hell I think or mean if you weren’t here to rephrase it and point it out to me? It’s nice to have a translator interpret my words into bullshit for me. Not speaking the native language of so many commenters has truly been a trial.
Here…I’ll stop commenting and you can make the rest of the thread up for me. You’ll have one less step to go through in coming up with dismissive snark.
It’s been real y’all.
Liz321 @86:
Doubtless I have seen the same videos you have, and I’ve yet to see anyone put themselves between police and protestors in order to protect the police. I have seen many people use their bodies as a physical and psychological barrier to shield their fellow community members from police threat, I have seen people imploring their friends and neighbors to “don’t give them a reason” and “don’t give them an excuse” re: police chomping at the bit to beat on another black person. The fact that that’s how you see things– community members protecting the heavily armed and armored fucking police who have a history of beating and murdering black people from the anger of unarmed civilians who have a history of being beaten and murdered– does not speak well for your perspective.
Liz321@135:
Would you happen to know who is being injured and who is doing the injuring? Can’t find the source at the moment, but I believe it said that most of the injuries were caused by the police response, and most of the injured were the protesters. Makes sense, if you think about who has the gear and who is trained to believe in physical methods of crowd control.
Yet reports will say something along the lines of “peace returns after police action, many injured in riots.”
karmacat @126
Jackie has some examples for you @59.
Sorry liz, I didn’t know pointing out the logical implications of your arguments wasn’t fair game (you do realize that police use violence, right? I am not sure, because I’ve not seen a peep from you on the subject of the police).
But please do stick the flounce anyway.
Innocent (black) man gets his neck snapped: business as usual
Car or building gets damaged: OMG SOCIETY IS COLLAPSING
Destroying property because government takes money (taxes): patriotic
Destroying property because government takes lives: OMG SOCIETY IS COLLAPSING
I am so fucking sick of listening to white, sheltered, middle class relatives and acquaintances blather about how terrible the “riots” are, but they didn’t say a word (and continue to remain silent) about the fucking MURDERS and BRUTALITY that the “rioting” people have enduring for…well, centuries. And of course, said white morons always ending up blathering about MLK — for all purposes, insinuating that black people should be good little pets, and that when they are abused by the white powers that be, they should just say (smiling and in a cordial and pleasant voice), “Excuse me, kind sir, would you care to please remove your boot from my neck? Oh, you won’t? Sorry for the inconvenience of my request, dear sir. Please carry on, if you’re so inclined.”
As if passive, silent, unwavering acceptance of abuse changes anything. But when (white, head-in-the-sand) people are convinced — or willfully choose to believe, rather — that racism disappeared with a magical “poof” in 1865 (or insert year of choice), of course they don’t see a need for any form of resistance. No need for blacks to get so uppity, after all.
Cars can be fixed, replaced. Buildings can be repaired, rebuilt. However, people, once gone, can never come back. But, in our sick society, property is seen as so much more valuable than a human life. Where do we go from here?
You bring up a good point about what worked then and how it might work now, Karmacat. I don’t think I agree with it, but I wish I was wrong.
After Occupy I stopped believing that the press or the politicians gave two shits about anything but money.
I’m not sure the protests of the civil rights eras could be said to have “worked”. It made significant changes, but not nearly enough. Our country is fighting against civil rights as hard as ever. What was one has been slowly taken back, bit by bit. From forced birthers restricting abortion access and states’ attempts to block same sex marriage to voter registration laws meant to keep poor people of color from voting, civil rights are not safe. The War on Drugs is just the new way we cage black people, keep them poor and tear apart their families. I do not mean to degrade the legacy of MLK or any other civil rights advocates of that era. I just think that saying the protests of the 60’s “worked” is sort of putting a Mission Accomplished banner across it.
Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe that is too cynical.
Won not one.
I’m on fire today!
*sigh*
Jackie #150 – maybe the civil rights-era protests didn’t “work”, but did they help?
This will happen eventually, when a Robespierre or a Lenin or a Mao rises and start telling their flock that exterminating the upper class (and their enforcers, and their lackeys, and those who object to the extermination) is the best way to fix problems.
***
Non violence worked well for MLK because behind the scenes, the civil right activists had the mean to shoot back. Not only that, but the South didn’t willingly abolish segregation: it was forced to by the federal State; in fact, southern schools had to be desegregated literally at gunpoint. The bullies didn’t change their behavior because they were shamed: they changed their behavior because their adversary was twisting their arms to the breaking point.
Baltimore Orioles COO John Angelos, son of owner Peter Angelos.
Yet, if God wills that [violence] continue until all the wealth piled by [unjust fines and imprisonment of black people] shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood [spilled by police] shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. — Paraphrase of Lincoln’s 2nd Inaugural address.
Perhaps MLK, Jr. isn’t the right person to invoke, here. This is part of an older struggle, unfinished business from 150 years ago. Sometimes violence is the only answer.
I’m not saying that this is the case here–but perhaps it is. Or perhaps it will be, in the end.
Pteryxx,
?
Demanding total non-violence is just a ruse to avoid addressing the issues. In 2003, the US saw the largest protests ever (against the Iraq War) and they were non-violent. They were completely ignored. Not saying that violence is the answer, but if the protests in Baltimore were non-violent, we wouldn’t be hearing about them.
If the government ignored Occupy, how big and how sustained does a protest have to be before they’ll take notice?
Do we even have the same rights 60’s protesters did? Did they have “Free Speech Zones” then?
Also, weren’t there multiple riots during the 60’s?
Also, remember the police riot at the 1968 Democratic convention. Remember Jack Anderson, the journalist Nixon planned to assassinate. Remember the FBI trying to convince MLK to kill himself. Remember that there were more cases of shootings than the ones in Ohio. The students in Ohio were just the first white student protesters shot at. Anti-segregationists were murdered. Blood was regularly shed, just not by the protesters. It wasn’t peaceful at all.
Jackie @158
The government didn’t ignore Occupy. They used the force of the state to demolish it.
When oppressed peoples fail to overthrow the leaders we don’t like elsewhere in the world, we bomb them back to the stone age to “free” them.
But violence is wrong, y’all.
I’m sure that double standard has nothing to do with the fact the US bombs brown people.
*eyeroll*
We’re in how many wars now? I’ve lost track.
But, violence never solved anything. Every good american knows that.
That’s why we don’t have a death penalty here.
oh…wait…
Tabby Lavalamp,
I stand corrected. That’s absolutely true.
Rehashing and expanding a quote that’s been said again and again on twitter, but… well, you can quote MLK all you like, liz321, but you know what? You have no idea what he would say about today’s situation. You have no idea what he would think of today’s police brutality. Back in the ’60s, it was a similar-but-not-the-same fight for civil rights to be acknowledged – now the laws are there, but the practices are still somewhat at odds (see here to read about how JUSTICE!!! has been brought to ‘rogue’ cops shooting unarmed (black) civilians). And it would be great to know what MLK thinks of the current situation, because it is no doubt not the dream he had in mind…
But you know what?
He is fucking dead. And you know why? Because he was fucking assassinated. And you know why? Because even his non-violence was too much of a threat to white supremacy.
So he’s dead, and you can quote him from the ’60s and the ’70s all you like, but don’t pretend for a minute that his opinions would still be the same, were he alive and breathing and thinking and protesting today.
Non-violence.
Show me a strategy that hasn’t gotten anyone killed, ever, and we can talk about non-violence as the ‘only viable path’.
There’s justification in shaming the aggressor for their calls for non-violence “halfway through the war”, but the “high road” position is STILL to aim for non-violence. What is the alternative? MORE violence? That will somehow make it all better? Not ALL the cops are guilty of what happened to Gray. The mayor isn’t. The other citizens aren’t.
It might feel good to say, “Oh, no, you started this”, but the better person does NOT say “too late”.
As long as liz321 condemns systemic state and police brutality much more than rioting, I don’t think she’s inconsistent in her convictions. When a community gets isolated/brutalized by people outside, and doesn’t have any other means of being heard or enacting change, than yes: force should not be dismissed as mindless crime, and fuck non-violence. And riots do instigate change, and force people to pay attention (and there are people calling for non-violence who are only trying to further take advantage of an oppressed community).
But you can acknowledge this, and still advocate for non-violence in *every* situation (and so be against the rioting, so long as for every sentence you speak against rioting, you say 20 against police/state brutality). That’s not a contradiction (even if it turns out that rioting was the most useful response, and that it occurred because of a climate of oppression) . It’s called being a pacifist. Do I think that being a pacifist is the way to go here? I don’t know (I go back and forth, really). But it’s not something that should be laughed out of the room.
Oh, oh, and this: James Baldwin Tells Us All How to Cool It This Summer.
Regarding Occupy:
http://www.businessinsider.com/this-is-a-police-state-not-a-democracy-2012-12
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/12/1025512/-Police-Violence-Another-Big-Difference-Between-The-Tea-Party-and-Occupy-Wall-Street#
Regarding the Civil Rights Movement, from wikipedia:
Jackie #156: no, I basically agree. When someone says the civil rights protests “worked” and then stops there, it’s as disingenuous as saying the Civil War or the Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery or racism. Sure, there was progress, especially on paper, and then convict slavery and Jim Crow became the tactics of choice. Then the civil rights movement forced another high-water mark, and redlining and police brutality just had another layer of figleaves added on. At some point there had to be very public outrage, though, to break through the carefully preserved ignorance and complacency that covers the oppression from the outside. And the conversation’s moved on, so anyway.
I note that last night’s live Baltimore coverage (as opposed to the same couple of incidents being run on constant loops today) mainly consisted of empty streets, except for phalanxes of riot cops and National Guard armored vehicles. Almost everyone protesting obeyed the curfew and disappeared. That was as nonviolent as they could reasonably get – but it means people hiding quietly in their homes while a heavily armed military force patrols their streets. Nonviolent it might be, but it doesn’t seem like anything I’d call peaceful.
Tony! linked this last night in the America thread but it’s relevant backstory here. Pardon the long copy-paste.
Why blacks running from cops is entirely logical – and so common
edmond @164
Sometimes all that’s left for the oppressed is to rise up in revolution. The “liberal” media is, for the most part, the voice of the oligarchy. The ballot box has been taken away in ever increasing numbers through jerrymandering, voter ID laws, and the collision of a racist “justice system” and laws that prohibit felons from voting.
But hey, the oppressed should quiet down, remain non-violent. That’s been working for them so well for the past several decades. All they need to do is remain non-violent for just a little bit longer…
Edmond:
The alternative is to let them decide what seems proper at the moment. Don’t put “violence” (self defense, destruction of property) off of the table.
And yes, not all of the cops are guilty. The mayor isn’t. But they are part of the power structure that led to the abuse, defending the abuser, and ensuring that shit like this can happen again in the future. And it is one of many injustices that these people face every day. And also the cops ARE guilty of coming out by the dozens in riot gear, shutting down businesses and transportation after school, cracking down so hard that they instigated a riot in the name of preparing to fend one off.
They are not saying it is “too late” and they are unwillling to stop. They are saying quite emphatically they want the police to stop doing the shit they have been doing, to clean up shop and make sure justice can be served. To start making some steps in the positive direction. It isn’t the protesters who are being stubborn, violent, and refusing to stop.
Liz321
I ain’t the comment police, I’m a monitor. A very prestigious position that comes with all the glory, responsibility and power you just witnessed: I get to post the blog rules in bold letters.
edmond
Bullshit. There is a long history of police abuse in Baltimore. The “Nickel Rides”, the abuse that is suspected to be behind Gray’s death, were well known. The city even paid over 100 victims of police brutality. The mayor knew, the cops knew and they didn’t do shit to stop it.
gakxz1:
The problem with pacifism in this situation is expecting OTHER people to be pacifists when they are ones in harm’s way and confronting violent people, and living in an oppressive and unjust climate where no protest means resigning yourself to police brutality. You don’t get to demand absolute pacifism of other people, telling them they have no right to defend themselves, or not even the right to damage property, because of your own pacifism. Pacifism is a great standard to try to live up to. Demanding that other people live up to it when they are the ones being assaulted borders on fucking evil, though.
Also, the reason why liz321 got laughed out of the room was more due to her inability to comprehend or honestly engage with what other people were actually saying.
edmond,
Yes, all cops are guilty of what’s happening around the country. And yes, the mayors of every city are also guilty. And so is any other politician who can do something about it but is not doing it.
liz321 used ‘ad hominem’ and no one called them on it.
We’re getting sloppy, here, people.
Oh, especially for Liz321
Looks like you quoted MLK out of context
liz321 #92:
I’ve seen one person support violence @1.
I’ve seen many people say they understand the violence and civil unrest. Acknowledging that violence and civil unrest are very likely among a group of marginalized people who have tried all over avenues is not the same as supporting violence and civil unrest. Why is this distinction so difficult for you to understand that you’re conflating the two?
50 comments to go
liz321 says @115:
She’s a monitor. She’s doing the work PZ has asked of monitors. If you don’t like it, the door is ——>
What’s mind-blowing is that you think people are insulting you and calling you names because you disagree with them. That’s not the motherfucking reason you’ve gotten the kinds of responses you’ve been receiving. If you can’t even accurately characterize the views of the people you disagree with, perhaps you shouldn’t be part of this conversation.
Scratch that.
Given your performance in this thread, with your tut-tutting and your concern for goddamn property over human lives, you should just leave this fucking conversation right the fuck now.
And if all those coarse words offend your fee fees, I’m sure as fuck not sorry.
30
anteprepro @173
Yeah… I don’t really know what my opinion is here! On the one hand: I remember during Hurricane Katrina, when after days of horrible aid relief, the news started reporting people “looting”. When people in my family went to pile on, my instinct was to angrily respond with something like “What are you talking about! There’s a hurricane in an already mistreated neighborhood, and a ‘who gives a shit about those people’ response, and your initial reaction is to hate the people suffering the most? Because of a stolen TV set? Priorities!”
But (on the other hand) if someone says they’re a ‘pacifist’ (or always for non-violence), and are then asked to comment on something (or just want to contribute): what are they supposed to say? “Great, there’s already horrible violence done against one group of people (much of it not reported). And now… more violence!! How fun!”. Though yes, if they expect other people to be pacifists, especially those in bleak environments…
Anyway… I think I shall stop arguing now and listen.
My fear is that the violence and rioting from Monday night gives some officials the excuse not focus on something else than coming to the bottom of why interacting with the police resulted in the death of a young man and the severing of his spine. The police need to be held accountable for their actions and while the frustration which led to the rioting is understandable (although in my opinion neither helpful or justified), it detracts from the real issue of police brutality.
Watching the news now and most of what they’re talking about is the looting and destruction of buildings, which should not be the focus at all.
kayden @182
Whereas handwringing in the general direction of the riots is totally not a distraction from the real issue at all.
Chris J’s link @141 is a good read. Here is one particularly interesting bit:
Police brutality and systemic discrimination of African-Americans by the criminal justice system has beat black people down over and over again in this country. Black people have tried every avenue available, and this shit *still* continues. Now, fed up with being oppressed some black people have engaged in civil unrest and property damage (and a smattering of violence against people). What *else* are they supposed to do? People like liz321 are saying “don’t be violent”. Well that doesn’t leave people with much recourse does it? When everything else has failed, why should people not engage in civil unrest and violence? They have nothing else to lose.
I’m not condoning or condemning the civil unrest or violence. In fact, I think the focus on those aspects of the protest misses the bigger picture. I think paying attention to that ignores the root problem at the heart of the problems in Baltimore and across the country. The problem is the racism inherent in the criminal justice system that victimizes, brutalizes, discriminates against, and oppresses black bodies. Deal with *that* and things will most likely NOT progress to the point where people feel the need to engage in civil unrest and violence.
Jackie @150:
I don’t think it’s cynical at all. I feel the same way. Many USAmericans (mostly white, but people of other races as well) think that racism is over and they point to the Civil Rights Movement. Yet these people don’t even understand how pervasive racism is. The Civil Rights Movement didn’t eliminate the systemic biases against black people in the criminal justice system. The CRM didn’t magically erase race-based implicit biases from the minds of citizens of this country. The CRM didn’t eliminate the privileges accorded to white people and withheld from black people.
The Civil Rights Movement never ended, so it can’t be said to have accomplished as much as many people think.
Here’s another nice point from Chris J’s link @141:
People like liz321 need to read the whole damn thing.
kayden @182:
Police brutality is one part of the real issue. It isn’t the entire issue. The protests in Baltimore were sparked by the brutal treatment of Freddie Gray by the police, but that brutality is one small part of the larger issue: an UNjust criminal justice system which oppresses and discriminates against black bodies. The police are part of that criminal justice system, but they are not the entirety of it. It can be helpful to keep this in mind when discussing these protests (or the rare instances of civil unrest).
Right now, the police are out of control in this country. They engage in unnecessary violence against a segment of the community that can’t hold them accountable. Being black means your existence is cause for police suspicion and are thus a potential target for this violence at any time. If you survive, you will most likely be the labeled the “dangerous” person by the public and have your life ruined as a result. If you go out of your way to cooperate and surrender peacefully, police are still likely to find a flimsy excuse to kill or beat you. Or they will have a pre-fabricated excuse and plant it on you while you bleed to death. If you are arrested for a crime you did not commit, you’re still likely to be convicted on phony evidence and false police testimony anyway and thus encouraged to plea bargain as a means of damage control. Either way, you lose. The police are an occupying force there to keep you under control, not to protect and serve your community.
The legal system will rarely give police officers more than a gentle slap on the wrist, much less convict them for cold blooded murder, even if caught on camera. Politicians only seem interested in enabling more police violence under the guise of the War on Drugs or Terrorism for fear of being labeled “soft on crime.” When a non-violent suspect is murdered, the media often decides to spend their time digging up any piece of dirt they can find on the victim, implicitly trying to justify the police officer’s act of murder after the fact. People ignore peaceful protests, dismissing them as troublemakers wasting everyone’s time with inconsequential causes because they’d rather not look for a job.
That’s the source of desperation and desire for immediate action. My white privilege blinders have been loosened enough for me to see that the situation is completely intolerable, and stagnant at best, if not getting worse. Inaction means more people will die.
Yes, non-violent methods would be preferable to violence. If they got visible results. From what I can tell, these riots are happening because the powers that be have gone through a lot of trouble to prevent the usual non-violent methods from accomplishing anything. They rely on privileged people who are as naive as I once was to believe in the power of those now-impotent methods to the point that they’ve made a sanitized, revisionist version of Martin Luther King for them to discourage any other course of action.
Yes, I want to use non-violent methods, but in these desperate circumstances, I am not going to use that preference as an excuse to imply that the rioters are stupid or savage for not trying certain non-violent methods. They very likely have tried those methods, and were rewarded with failure. If I get an idea for non-violent action, I am going to try to make it specific and be prepared to hear that it’s been tried countless times and didn’t work. I will try to understand why it failed and use that knowledge to think of better ideas.
In short, I don’t get to play the smug condescending IT guy who assumes the person with the problem is too stupid to read the manual. I’m the n00b who found out the manual intentionally oversimplifies things and is long out of date, anyway.
Not all cops? Really, edmond?
*shakes head*
We really are having the same arguments over and over again, aren’t we? The minority changes but the arguments for why they should pipe down and be nice remain the same.
If my kids were the ones getting shot, how many fucks do you think I’d give about being the “better person”?
How can you say that an occupied population has to preform at a higher standard than their oppressors to be good people? Why should they be better than their oppressors? Why are you admonishing them for grabbing the boot that kicks them? How do you even make your fingers type those words? I’m honestly flummoxed.
Was that meant to be comforting to black people who do not riot? Because it sounds condescending as fuck.
Bronze Dog @188:
Well said. Thank you.
Who has time to be a better person when they’re simply trying to be a living person?
The Onion gets right to the heart of the matter:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/baltimore-residents-urged-to-stay-indoors-until-so,38511/
The week long curfew is ridiculous. They are basically treating Baltimore residents like children. I passed by 2 stores that were boarded up from the looting. But there are many more buildings boarded up because of poverty.
this is the title of the article if people don’t want to follow the link
Baltimore Residents Urged To Stay Indoors Until Social Progress Naturally Takes Its Course Over Next Century
Yeah. That’s why they’re fighting back. To feel good. It isn’t like they’re fighting for their lives. They’re just smug. /s
I wonder who actually started the violence. Implicit in the calls for calm seems to be the idea that it was the civilians who set things off. You can bet that if evidence appeared showing the riot cops were the instigators we’d see all sorts of rationalisations why it wasn’t their fault.
Tony @191: You’re welcome.
I’m reminded of an episode of DS9 where Sisko is dealing with the emerging Maquis and has a Starfleet Admiral speak to him as if it’s just a simple matter to talk some sense into them, get them to stop fighting, and convince them to move out of their homes. He later comments to a friend that the idyllic Earth is part of the problem: It’s easy to be a saint in paradise.
The problem with living life on easy mode is that it’s easy and tempting to criticize the people who aren’t, rather than try to understand the additional difficulties they’re going through.
The local coppers all have shit-files on each other so the violence won’t stop. It will go on forever. If anyone tries to speak against the cops they will be given a peek at their shit-file and that will shut them up quick-smart.
timgueguen @ 196
Its clear the police instigated the violence, just as they have in every “riot” the past . . . 6 months? Year? Forever? On top of all the structural and historical reasons and recent events, the police are very good at putting people in a position to react. The tactics change in every situation, but they make decisions to make an unstable situation more unstable. Curfews, random street restrictions, shutting down public transportation, wearing riot gear, or bringing in tanks. The authority adds heat to a already hot fire and then points the finger when they get burnt. This isn’t stupid decision making by those in power, they want to change the focus to the “riots”.
Tony @192, Damn. That’s a hard-hitting truth. Thank you for that thought.
Goodness there are some shitty human beings in here.
I don’t mean the people supporting an oppressed population that is understandably and justifiably lashing out as their family gets killed, their police force treats them as criminals (going back hundreds of years, this is a pattern that must be followed back), their fellow citizens propagate a system that puts them in a subordinate position by design (also going back in time), and many other horrific facts. I mean the shitty ones are the ones that have to utterly ignore the point of this post like cowards and make excuses to deflect, ignore and suppress a point. They are doing this as a matter of strategy in a social conflict. They are probably doing this unconsciously (like fallacious reasoning) but that does nothing to make it go away. liz321 is the go to example but there are several others.
Fucking use reading comprehension. If you will not do a person the respect of addressing their point they have no obligation to address yours. In fact in a situation like this with authorities literally murdering people that refusal to address a point is ignoring thing that others NEED to have heard so their families can survive. Chris J was spot on at 120 when they said
. That can be easily tied to the people in here that simply refuse to fucking read and respond to what is being said in here.
Serious question that must be answered by the ones whining about social self-defense: Do you believe that a people can suffer a level of abuse that leaves them no option but rebellion? If yes, all that remains is actually responding to the facts of the situation. If no, fucking admit to it already because it’s at least nice to know who my political enemies are. If you won’t answer I will take that as a no and act accordingly.
Suffering people will do what they need to because that is human nature The only thing that can support the existence of people that can create another way is a society willing to go after authorities willing to use violence. I find little of moral concern when it comes to using violence against a violent authority that by its actions appears to care nothing about the violence they create. I’ll come right out and say it, when the social contract breaks down and society allows violence I support violence against the authorities. When there is no other option due to:
*Imminent threat
*Culture
Literally culture! When the social contract breaks down that is how you must get rid of a human threat so others do not die. It’s precisely the same as killing a murderer in self-defense on a social level because there is every reason to expect that it will happen again. Society propagates behavior unless you can drive a lesson into a group all at once which is unrealistic. A group message on the other hand…*
Additionally anyone bemoaning and pearl-clutching over violence that is unable to offer a different tool that gets actual results will be utterly ignored in the final analysis. All that human nature above will see to that. You are tasteless black lines on a screen to me. My mind will simply flush your worth away.
*My fantasy involves the death penalty not being abandoned, but limited to the powerful as they have plenty of resources for their defense. I’m sure that has flaws somewhere but at this point in history it looks like social medicine.
to be utterly trivial and OT:
I just realised that the cop with the upsidedown shield looks a bit like PZ.
@Dark Jaguar #2
Silly kitty: those are the people rioting and protesting.
Wow, for some reason I had an old version of this thread open and it exploded into 200 comments. Oops, lots to read and what looks like lots of status-quo-apologia.
None of this is any good.. however…. this certainly seems to be a case of “you reap what you sow”..
This sort of thing has happened time and again (eg.. Daily Show this week) and probably will again…
The Police just keep on sowing these seeds… it’s a bit rich (stupid) to not expect to reap the harvest eventually…
there is something else that seems to be implied when some people start going on about how the protests should be all none violent like it was advocated by the great none=violent leaders of the past or at least ignored. The protests should not be disruptive to the ordinary business of society. The truth of the matter is that the protests that were the most effective in bringing the issues to the attention of everyone that made it necessary for negotiations to be begun was the fact that they were very disruptive and provocative. They were peaceful in that they were not armed but they blocked traffic, disrupted business activity, provoked an aggressive response from their target and their sympathizers and kept come back for more regardless of the reaction. In fact if there were very little reaction then the actions would be increased until there was a reaction. As some one sad above it ain’t stopped yet because the goal has not be reached
I was just wondering what fraction of those who were actively engaged in the destructive behavior had not had first hand experience of the abuse of authority at the hands of the police in the past, had been busted for nothing, hassled for being black in the wrong place, enjoyed the “joy ride” have a brother or father doing hard time in some dungeon.
Another take on the factors that lead to the current protests: The way unconstitutional housing policies are used to maintain segregation. Read From Ferguson to Baltimore by Richard Rothstein.
Again, what you sow, you will reap.
Non-violence – yes, of course! Absolutely! Starting with the heavily-armed, trained, uniformed gang of instigators (who are being paid to be there).
When every death in police custody is impartially and thoroughly investigated, tried, sanctioned; when the numbers of those harmed in police custody fall to vanishingly tiny levels; when everybody has good reason to regard the police as protectors just as much as I have (and preferably more) – then I’ll criticise “rioting”. Not before.
The second that police become non-violent, using non-violent means to achieve their ends, then you can feel free to demand non-violence from the citizens.
The second that citizens have the political power and clout to wish all of these problems away into the cornfield, then you can feel free to demand that they only use that most careful, cautious, and meek tactics available to them.
When neither of these are the case, and yet you demand of them passivity, vehemently disapproving of the oppressed making a mess of Things in response to the killing of People, the message is that you cannot support them unless they make martyrs of themselves, because otherwise you feel morally unclean. Because you only feel you can only support them if their blood continues to be shed without them raising a finger in anger or opposition. Because you care more about decorum and clean streets than the well-being and lives of those protesting oppression and murder.
Make no mistake, I don’t condone violence. I don’t think it is ideal. I don’t think it is good. I don’t condemn non-violence. I don’t think non-violence is useless. But non-violence takes a lot of time and effort to work, needs to be very strategic and well organized with a lot of fucking ground support, and in the face of police, it puts lives at risk. It is a literal sacrifice. So I cannot DEMAND non-violence. I cannot condemn the violence of those who are themselves faced with violence. I can say what I would do, what the ideal response might be, but that is taking about ideals, a perfect response in a perfect world. But that’s all beside the point when I am not the one who is there coping with the risk of violence against myself, and beside the point when reality isn’t as kind to high-minded generalized principles.
“Maybe we are not ready for nonviolence.” ~ Mohandas K. Gandhi
@kayden: it doesn’t actually matter. At all. If every single protester behaved perfectly in every way, the Baltimore establishment would simply lie, and attribute either unrelated crimes or nonexistent events to “thugs” and “rioters”.
Right now there’s a smear campaign floating around that Gray had a lawsuit for a spine injury, using photographs of court documents showing a settlement. These are using actual court documents of a settlement his family received for lead paint poisoning – in other words, somebody deliberately faked a “spinal injury lawsuit” to spread the lie that Gray was not harmed by the police.
Just a note to remind people that it’s perverse to continually use “violence” primarily and almost exclusively to describe damage to property. Not about injuring or killing people. But about property.
Re-read the thread and count the number of references to “violence.” Look at how many of them are referring to stealing or damage to property. Notice how few of them are in reference to actual violence against people, such as the murders and maiming of black citizens by police.
This is fucking morally deranged, and people like Liz321 can’t see it.
PLEASE stop accepting this frame. Stop accepting “violence” as a synonym for “property damage” without commenting on this derangement. Don’t let people do this to the discourse!
Cops being afraid to lose their jobs is no excuse.
My husband worked with special needs adults. When he saw a case of abuse he blew the whistle and was fired. He’s walked away from jobs more than once because he felt he had to. You know what we did? We were dirt fucking poor and we dealt with it. . That’s what happens when you speak truth to authority. Choices have consequences and personal sacrifices are made every day by people who aren’t even trying to stop murders. If your job is being a fucking storm trooper, you should not want that job. A sneak thief making money by burglary is a more moral person than a cop who would keep mum about police brutality. It isn’t as if the Nazis are going to come for their families if they speak up. They’ll just have to be broke like the people they are complicit in killing.
Latest info.
http://live.baltimoresun.com/Event/Latest_updates_from_the_Freddie_Gray_case_in_Baltimore
Josh,
Thank you. I missed that.
Josh, Official SpokesGay says @ 212;
Exactly – allowing the discourse to be shaped in such a fashion that an equvalency is drawn between property damage on the one hand, and repeated acts of racially motivated, state-sanctioned murder on the other, cannot be allowed to stand.
I also think it important that we look at these calls for non-violence in the context of one side being ordinary citizens who are rioting and mostly causing property damage rather than death and injury, while the other side consists of a grossly paramilitarized and heavily armed police force that has clearly spat upon its undertaking to ‘protect and serve’ the citizenry, and instead is acting as a racist cadre of partizan thugs enforcing the will of the social elite upon the rest of society by any means up to and including cold blooded murder, and all the while those who commit those murders are subsequently able to hide behind their badges and, in most cases, escape any and all punishment for their crimes. And yet, when the calls for non-violence come, they are aimed mostly, or even exclusively, at the marginalised, the disenfranchised; at the unarmed ordinary citizen standing up to what essentially amounts to paramilitary agencies of authoritarian oppression. It is much like seeing an act of bullying, and then chiding the victim for even thinking of trying to resist while ignoring the bully who is still kicking them in their ribs.
In such a scenario, calls for non-violence applied to groups who have already tried complete submission to an ever more corrupt and oppressive system of law for forty years and who have received nothing in return other than ever worsening oppression and a pile of people dead for the ‘crime’ of being abroad while black amounts to apologia for the status quo. It is in effect a statement of allegiance to a racist and corrupt system.
How about we start with calls for the accountability of the police? How about we actually bother prosecuting murderers with badges reliably and fairly? How about we tackle deaths and abuses of suspects in custody? Once those who are supposed to be civil servants are held to a standard of behaviour befitting their role and the authority it grants to them, then we can talk about the need for the victims of oppression to step back and look to their own behaviour, but I suspect that, once the bigotry and corruption are gone, the rioting and civil disobedience will subside along with it. Its almost as if the two things are linked or something…
Oh, and for those who continue to believe that the protestors were solely responsible for the riot….
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/how-baltimore-riots-began-mondawmin-purge
Just before the local high school lets out, the cops shut down the buses and trains, and blocked several of the roads. So you had all the kids coming out of school, and those who didn’t crib rides from a teacher were forced to just hang around, caged in by walls of cops in riot gear, with no way to get home. Just had scores (maybe hundreds, I can’t find numbers for the size of the school) of bored, scared and/or angry adolescents, forced to just hang around and wait. I can’t think of a better way to goad the teens into doing something rash. And once one of them does, well, there’s the justification for escalation.
Just dropping in mainly to say thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread. Like the Ferguson threads before it has been very educational, in a sad way. I am fortunate (not even American) that I am completely unable to relate to the people in Baltimore. Crap of that magnitude has never happened to me, nor is ever likely to, so asking me what I’d do if me and mine were systematically oppressed is no more meaningful than asking me what I’d do if I won the lottery or were asked to fly into space. Does not happen.
Reading this thread, links and quotes helps quite a bit. Normally I’d default to “non-violence of course” because I’m just not equipped to imagine a situation where I might feel I need to smash someone else’s car just to be noticed.
As others pointed out, those who have condemned the rioters fail to suggest feasible alternatives to improve the situation. Before anyone who universally condemns rioting as a means of social change even goes so far as to make any suggestions they they should really answer Brony’s question (#201):
If your answer is ‘no’ I think you might suffer from a failure of imagination and need not bother to argue your case. I share this failing but after reading this thread I accept that the answer must be ‘yes’. Yes, absolutely. I can’t imagine being in that situation but this abuse is clearly happening. The response may not seem sensible but it does make sense.
This is a followup to comment #211, in which the doctored lead paint exposure settlement was used to claim Freddie Gray had a prior spinal injury. That bogus claim, and others, was nicely debunked by journalist Shaun King.
Dunno if this has been posted in the “morning in America” thread (which i keep not bookmarking and can never find again -_-)
http://feministing.com/2015/04/29/when-white-people-tell-each-other-to-be-safe-during-an-uprising/
Another viewpoint: a reporter talks to Baltimore rich people attending the Maryland Hunt Cup:
Ah, there’s that bogus claim about the spine already broken. I guess you know which news outlets those guys listen to.
In 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at the American Psychology Association’s Annual Convention in Washington D.C. A full transcript of his speech is available at the link, but I wanted to highlight this segment, where he discusses riots:
I’m a Baltimorean (moved there from NYC in 1968 at the age of 6) and lived there until 1999. The first place I lived that I could call my own was a little rowhouse a couple blocks from Memorial Stadium (and a block from John Waters) I remember when the desegregated the schools. My family moved there when my dad got a good job offer at Johns Hopkins because they lost a lot of people after the riots when Martin Luther King was shot; real estate was cheap.
Real estate in Baltimore was cheap in 1968 because after the riots there was “white flight” to the massive suburbs that developed all around the city. Growing up, I remember occasionally going to the sniny new “shopping mall”(a new idea then!) that had opened up in one of those wealthy new suburbs in Columbia, MD – 20 miles outside of the city. ~10 years later, White Marsh, 25 miles north. ~15 years later Owings Mills.. The city was ringed with quiet, clean, nice suburbs filled with all the people who had left Baltimore and gotten lawns. Meanwhile, as I meandered through grade school and high school, downtown was a bit of a pit around the old harbor, with a “block” of porn stores and strip clubs stretching from what is now Harbor Place to Little Italy. Fells Point – now a little cluster of nice restaurants for hipsters – was a place you didn’t go if you were smart. The inner harbor was fenced off. That was all unknown territory for me because I couldn’t work my bicycle fast enough to get through there safely.
In the late 70s a pattern began, which continued to this day. Starting with Baltimore’s mayor William Schaeffer, there were attempts to renovate and revitalize. Those attempts amounted to gifting big incentives to developers to come build nice things downtown. It started with Harborplace, which was a downtown mall built by the Rouse Co., on a piece of the inner harbor which was more or less given to Rouse by the city. It turned into a really spiffy destination that pulled other businesses and restaurants down, and there was a pretty lively period of revitalization down the downtown axis. Meanwhile, in the neighborhoods where segregation had allotted to African-Americans things more or less stayed the same. The renovated areas acted as a draw for suburban money to come down and have dinner in Baltimore and then flee back out to the suburbs again. Some truly horrible ‘projects’ were built – basically along the same lines as low-cost apartments everywhere: designed to warehouse low-income residents in rent-controlled subsidized housing where, in principle, they might be able to eventually … what? There were enough waiters for the restaurants in Harborplace, and the malls in the suburbs hired suburban kids, and soon the ‘projects’ were segregated, depressed, drugged, dangerous, and dismal. Baltimore tried to do attractive low-income housing by demolishing the projects and making modern versions of the rowhouses that were there before the projects went up. But the underlying problems were unchanged.
I remember the 80s when the influx of cocaine (which we now know was a result of CIA interference in Central America opening new markets in American inner cities-1) the late 80s had Baltimore and Washington as “the murder capital of the country” and it was spooky. By then, I had moved from my parents place and lived down near the stadium. Sometimes you’d hear gunshots and sirens. But the dirty secret the media didn’t talk about was that the violence was almost entirely segregated into African-American neighborhoods. The statistics told the truth: in the murder capital of the USA, 100% of the dead were African-Americans. Other than being on Eyewitness News, it was not a problem to do anything about. Drugs… in the 80s I remember the suburban kids would come to town to score drugs then go back and get high at their boring shopping mall jobs. Those kids were left alone. And, seriously, I understand and sympathize (I’ve done my share of drugs, and perhaps a bit of someone else’s share, too) if I was desperate and had no options, no opportunity, and my choices for how to make money was to wait tables, courier drugs, or waste my time trying to gnaw my way out of a trap, I’d have been blasted every waking day until it was over. I used to commute to my nice job in the suburbs and drove through those neighborhoods and, yeah, car-jacking was a problem so I kept my windows rolled up and my doors locked and went fast. That still hasn’t changed. I worked at Hopkins Hospital in the 80s and it was scary. They were always pulling people into the ER with gun and knife wounds. Never white people. And AIDS began to burn the segregated population, the enclaves in East and West Baltimore were devastated; the suburbs were OK. The expense of dealing with the travails of the segregated parts of the inner city was a great weight that always pulled the city down down down and since the tax base had left the city there was nothing to do.
The roads in and out of Baltimore go through the nice areas, which is funny because you think it’d be easier to put roads in the broken down parts. But there’s a north/south axis through the Jones Falls out to the nice suburbs to the North, and an exit out the bottom of the city for the bank workers, stock brokers, and baseball/football fans to get to the suburbs to the West. An attempt to make improved access through by Mondawmin mall: blocked. An attempt to extend Rt40 through West Baltimore: started by dropped. Once the problem was solved for the suburbanites, there was no money left for anyone else because the tax base had plummetted and the surrounding counties were where all the money lived. So big chunks of Baltimore just festered. They still fester. It’s a damn shame. The model of “build nice stuff to lure the suburbans in to the city” extended: Baltimore enslaved to the NFL and Major League Baseball built palatial stadiums (and didn’t worry overmuch about the impossible traffic and parking problems that ensued) and shut down Memorial Stadium (allowing that part of town to cough, die, and head toward slum) meanwhile telling the ridiculous lie that “no tax money is being used” and funding the mess with lottery money – a tax on hope and poverty – while closing schools because of lack of money, and letting roads turn into potholed messes.
And through it all, the police. As a privileged white kid, I always saw the police as ‘on my side’ (I wince when I think of that) until I realized that they weren’t. When the drug dealers moved into my neighborhood in the 80s I asked the police if they could do anything and they said “no.” When I was stuck up at gun-point near where a guy I knew had been shot to death a month before, I ran to a cop car that was idling on North Avenue and was told he couldn’t help me because it was in a different precinct and besides, the guy was probably gone by now .. and if he had a gun he was best left alone. When I got a job that took me further outside of the city, I took it, and moved out way past the suburbs and have no intention of ever living in a city again.
Baltimore’s cops mostly live in the suburbs and commute in to their “us versus them” jobs, because the suburbs don’t really need all that many cops.
Baltimore made a decision in the 1970s that the only way it could recover from the flight of wealth after the riots was to court suburban money and lure it into the city. So the whole city became aligned along the axis of: keep the valuable ‘nice neighborhoods’ nice, and keep the real estate moguls and professional sports teams and restaurant franchises happy, and, uh, fuck. They threw up their hands and quit before they really gave any thought to undoing the foundational damage of Jim Crow and dealing with the wealth-flight by building wealth in the city. I have no idea, seriously, how that could be done. I always come back to investing in education and infrastructure and making it possible to start businesses through access to capital. But instead, Baltimore has a kickass baseball stadium and football field and fuck all else. And cops that exist to serve that ridiculous imbalance. I really don’t see how the situation can unscrew itself now that it’s screwed up so tightly. I certainly understand why anyone would want to go burn a few cop cars, though; they are the face of a very complex and foundational system of oppressive mismanagement.
I’m saddened at how happy I was with the cool mall that grew up around the inner harbor (I mean, it really is NICE) because I didn’t realize it was built for me, and the prices put even walking in there out of the reach of all the people who actually lived around it. At the time we thought of William Donald Schaeffer as a grumpy old coot who had his heart in the right place (he was the architect of the ‘court the suburbs’ strategy) and at the time there were very few voices who asked whether it was corrupt to give valuable land to developers so that they could make it more valuable and use that value to … build gated communities and malls in the suburbs.
I know I’m rambling but maybe some of this from one Baltimorean’s perspective might help.
(1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_cocaine_trafficking )
Tashiliciously Shriked @220:
Here is the link to the thread, which is now called “Reagan’s ‘morning in America’ has acquired a different resonance”. After three months, WordPress no longer allows a post to remain open, so PZ has had to start new ones (which I’m quite glad he’s done, given the resources provided in the thread).
Marcus @223:
Can’t speak for anyone else, but I found your perspective insightful. Thank you.
Tony @#225
Thanks.
When I started to write that I couldn’t stop; there were too many memories pouring over me. I feel sad and angry and ashamed right now because there’s all this little shit that you don’t realize when you’re growing up in the middle of it. Because it seems reasonable to you, you never look far enough to wonder if it’s reasonable enough for everybody. Maybe a saint does.
There are so many things about growing up in that kind of environment that slam back into you when you remember them in this kind of context. For example, I remember how there were concerted attempts to block Baltimore’s pathetic ‘light rail’ system from actually connecting the city to some of the suburbs. I remember those discussions (around the late 80s) and it was basically: “how can we in the suburbs get in to the baseball games without getting stuck in traffic, but OMG we have to keep ‘the people from the inner city’ from coming to ‘our’ nice shopping malls.” There was huge debate about how to do that and it’s only as I think about it now that I realize that it was done. The reason parking is so expensive in Harborplace is to make it too expensive for someone poor to go to Harborplace. And in Baltimore, “poor” means “African-American”.
It’s oppression woven into the very fabric of the society, so finely and smoothly that I grew up surrounded by it, taking advantage of it, and didn’t see it, and I’m really angry and ashamed of it right now.
Thank you, Marcus.
I’ve only read about half of these comments but the endless back and fourth bickering is getting to me. I’m not going to pretend I have a good solution to this problem, but I do know what I would be doing if there was some kind of riot going on. I’d post signs on most of my property and buy a goddamned 12 gauge and plenty of shells. The sign would simply say that ANY trespassers will be shot on sight. While I get that the nonviolent protests weren’t working what we are talking about is Anarchy. If that happens and anyone shows up with intent to harm or damage any part of my prosperity, they get a twelve gauge to the upper torso.
Ryan Dietz, #228
Well, yeah, if you’re under attack you have the right to defend yourself.
But… why bring that up in a discussion about protests and rebellions springing from racist police officers murdering black people?
Actually, you sound pretty fucking paranoid and pretty fucking dangerous. Did a protester attack your home or something?
Prosperity should be property, and I also forgot to add my or my families well being before property in comment 228.
Thats nice. Enjoy fondling your penis extention.
Well, aren’t you somebody special.,…Not in a good way.
Ryan Dietz
Perhaps you should strike first.
Get them before they get you.
Nuke ’em from orbit.
Ryan @228:
You poor, poor dear. You could, like, stop reading. That would solve your problem. And probably keep us from reading more of your apathetic comments that show more concern for goddamn property than human lives.
No, we are not talking anarchy. Check out the quoted material I posted @222. Or pull you head out of your ass and recognize that the civil unrest (read: riots by some people) is a response to a much deeper problem. One that won’t be solved by you grabbing a gun and killing people because they touched your grass.
It’s so lovely that amid the issues of police brutality and use of excessive force, the continued denial of the civil and human rights of African-Americans, rampant economic inequality, disproportionate incarceration of black bodies, and racist police policies like Stop N Frisk or Broken Windows, that your focus is on my poor property.
The boot of white supremacy is still pressed against the neck of blacks across the country (as well as Hispanics and American Indians), but that’s not a big deal to you apparently.
chigau @233:
Hey!
Don’t go giving the paranoid gundamentalist any ideas.
It’s more that people are “tut-tuting” each side too much in this “debate”.
I’m having some trouble explaining my vicious cycle thoughts to myself, so I apologize if what follows makes no sense or is hard to read but here goes.
Rioters are rioting about police brutality. Okay this makes sense.
Cops get called because there is a threat to public safety and personal property. Also makes sense.
Police feel threatened, because they are humans and I’d like to see anyone stay calm and feel un-threatened in front of a large group of angry people that are burning things and smashing business windows etc.
Police have been trained to react towards a threat to them self with force if necessary (necessary being determined by the officer if they think their life or the lives of any citizens are threatened). Not perfect, but what are you going to do if it looks like someone is going to stab/shoot you… Or hell, bash your head in with a rock, and your job is to stop the threat?
More protestors get killed by even the ” innocent” or “good” cops (or whatever you want to call them).
More violent protests because more protestors get killed or injured.
Rinse, lather, repeat.
Should we descend to Anarchy on the streets? Should cops not be able to defend themselves if they feel threatened?
Is the system perfect? Hell no. Do some or even most cops get a bit bully-ish or commanding? Yes, of course, but part of their job involves upholding laws, if they tell you to stop doing something you should probably stop and at least listen to them.
Do I think that getting shot in the back while handcuffed is excuse able? Hell no. How could anyone be a threat in that situation?!
Should cops be held to the same standards as any other human being in the United States? YES!!! Probably even more so than most.
Do I feel that anyone that kills anyone else should be put to death? Quite honestly, yes, I do depending on the situation. Visible threat to yourself or others? Your fine. Running away while cuffed and you shoot him? Instant death sentence, no questions asked.
Again, do I have a good answer for how to implement this ideology? No, tragically I don’t, because not all people believe that all people should be treated the same, because there are racist, bigoted, self-righteous, self-important fuckwits EVERYWHERE.
Is my original response extreme? Of course, but if we truly wish to move into anarchy then everyone would be responsible for looking out for themselves and their family first, and ask questions later, or never.
Tony!
I think the Zimmerman wannabe already has “ideas”.
You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
Ryan Dietz:
because there are racist, bigoted, self-righteous, self-important fuckwits EVERYWHERE.
Quoted for truth.
Ryan Dietz @ 236
Just a question to think about (for everyone, really): how do you know you aren’t one of those?
If you don’t have an answer to that question, you might want to look into one.
Ryan Dietz:
You really need to pay better attention to media outlets that are not mainstream. If you did, you’d know that the protests in Baltimore have been overwhelmingly peaceful:
You’re all worked up over the wrong fucking thing. The problem is not rioters. The problem is a racist as fuck criminal justice system that has been oppressing African-Americans (and other people who are not white) for centuries. Since you’re so worried about property over human lives, why don’t you do your part to dismantle the white supremacy engine that drives some African-Americans to such a point of desperation that they engage in civil unrest. Do that and odds are your precious property won’t be endangered.
Compared to those shattered lives, property-whether it’s a CVS or your fucking lawn-do not fucking matter.
Ryan Dietz, #236
You got that backwards.
The police is shooting, choking and beating the shit out of black people. But it’s a some property damage resulting directly in response to the murders that really gets to you.
No. More protests because black people keep being murdered by racist police.
Also, the protests are not violent. They’re peaceful. Why are you blind to the peaceful protests?
Also, refer to Josh’s #212 about your use of the term violence to describe property damage.
Did you seriously just say if the cops tell you to stop doing something, you probably should? How fucking clueless are you about this situation?
I don’t believe you.
Let me ask you one question though: Just what do you think uprisings and rebellions look like? Historically… what do you think all those brave white admirable heroes who have rebelled throughout history actually did?
It’s almost like someone stuck poor Ryan with a branding iron.
@ Ryan Dietz
Here you go dear, something in here should help.
Your choice to deliberately wrench attention from the results of a racist society also makes sense. You will not like the ways that it makes sense. Your emotional priorities are clear. You choose to try to distract attention from societies ills with a special reminder that white people will still kill when the social contract breaks down.
Why should I consider you an ally of any sort right now?
chigau, #237
That’s unfair. Ryan has clearly said he doesn’t have any ideas. He just can’t stand seeing a car burn.
Ah, a liberturd gun-nut trying to sound intelligent. Bwahahahahahhaa. A contradiction in terms. Oxymoron at its best.
Somebody thinks they are more special than others, without evidence that what they think isn’t a delusion.
Ryan Dietz @236:
You’ve not really given this much thought have you? The above is not a consistent position on killing others. You begin by saying that you feel anyone who kills anyone else should be put to death. But then you say there are circumstances where killing others is acceptable. Which means you don’t think that anyone who kills anyone else should be put to death.
Oh, and btw, the position you hold on killing others, for all that it is somewhat incoherent, is vile. As a Humanist, the idea of putting someone to death for killing others is abhorrent. It’s nothing more than the barbaric ‘eye for an eye’ mentality or retribution. I guess you don’t believe that human rights are for all human beings.
Gee, thanks for comparing me to such a FANTASTIC individual (sarcasm by the way)
Authoritarian alert!
Authoritarian alert!
By the way, the other thing that’s funny about Ryan’s “stand your ground” ideology is that if he ever did find himself confronting an armed and dangerous person who had come onto his property in a threatening manner: it would most likely be a cop. Pointing shotguns at cops is a bad idea, chickenhawk. They come in packs.
Ryan Dietz @247:
Firstly, it’s a common courtesy to use the nym and/or (preferably ‘AND’) comment number when responding to people (as I’ve done above). Also, quoting the material you’re responding to makes it easier to follow the conversation. To quote someone do this-
<blockquote> place quoted text here </blockquote>
This will result in this:
Just remember to close your tag with the ‘/’
Secondly:
Your disregard for human life makes the comparison to Zimmerman appropriate in my eyes.
Marcus @249:
Of course, given that Ryan is a white guy (check out his FB profile), chances are that he would probably emerge from a police encounter-even one where he brandishes a gun and/or threatened cops-relatively unharmed. If he were black OTOH…
Tashiliciously Shriked @220, quoting someone else:
My sister was almost an expat posting about her “safety” — except for the part about posting, since there was no internet. She was living on a side street a few blocks from Tahrir during the revolution. Security forces drove down her street firing tear gas and water cannons, and, judging from what she found on the street later, live ammunition. Thankfully she’d moved elsewhere before the coup, so she didn’t get a reprise. She had friends killed and tortured. The military regime aren’t fucking around: nearly 1,000 killed in few days of the revolution, more than that in the coup, and unknown but large numbers since.
Definitely people overstate the effect of protests and police riots on the general life of the city. I’m in Montreal, a war zone if you listen to the news, though I keep not hearing about protests until after they happen. Tahrir was not at all in the same league.
@Tony, I don’t know whether to like you or dislike you. I honestly wasn’t aware that a majority of the protestsors have been peaceful, but then you follow up with personal attacks because why?
I will also admit that I have trouble coherently communicating the point I’m trying to make, which occasionally means even I loose track of the point I’m trying to make.
Also, a rather unrelated question for you. As a humanist, what do you feel should have been done to someone like Hitlar had he not taken his own life? Is there not something akin to true evil in the world, and if so, how is continuing to let that evil continue un checked more or less vile than not allowing it to continue? I’m genuinely curious as to your thoughts on this side pondering, which can be difficult to convey through text.
Ryan@#253: I’m genuinely curious as to your thoughts on this side pondering
Just Asking a Question, eh? (Bit of a derail, don’t you think?)
Hitler could have been taken out of power and retired to someplace where he couldn’t cause any more harm; there’d be no need to kill him. Just make sure he can’t cause any more harm. You know, kind of like how Dick Cheney and George Bush and Henry Kissinger’s hands have been taken off the steering wheel.
Retributive violence isn’t about ‘justice’ it’s about the people engaging in the retribution. And it’s not pretty.
Marcus@#254 if nobody can tell, I’m new to this particular bored, and yes, it is a bit derailing.
Unfortunately I followed this post from a friends FaceBook page and foolishly didn’t bother to check if there was any rules to posting or if there was a way to send a private message to a particular person for such side questions.
Feel free to take it down or (if possible) edit it if it detracts from the conversation.
Isn’t the violent portion of the protests retributive violence in its own way?
Ryan Dietz @253:
It doesn’t bother me one way or the other if you like me or not.
I’ve criticized you because of the horrible things you’ve said.
I’ve criticized you because you’re speaking as if you understand what you’re talking about when you’re speaking from a profound position of white privilege coupled with staggering ignorance. It might be hard for you to hear someone be so blunt, but I make no apologies.
You are the one who came in here deriding protesters without having a full understanding of what they’re going through.
You’re the one who is talking about the situations in which you’d kill someone.
You’re the one placing greater value on property than human life.
All of that–the ignorance, the disregard for human life, the elevation of property over human life-that’s grounds in my book for not being nice. You’re deserving of the “personal attacks” you’ve received.
Take the time to communicate more clearly then. Practice at it. You don’t have to respond to every comment someone makes to you. You can take the time to clearly think through your positions, as well as the implications. What do I mean by that?
I already mentioned one example @246. You haven’t thought through the implications of your opinion that “anyone who kills anyone else ought to be put to death”.
For another example, you said above that if a rioter set foot on your property, you’d shoot them. That statement reveals quite a bit about you. It shows that you value property over human life. Why is that?
I’m talking about everyday human beings, not that one in a billion vile human being. But no, I wouldn’t have a problem if someone had put a gun to Hitler’s head and killed him. Such evil is not something most people will encounter in their lives, so it’s a pointless gotcha attempt on your part.
Ryan Dietz @ 255,
Welcome to Pharyngula! It is not for the faint of heart or the weak-willed. This board is positively merciless when it comes to bad ideas, logical flaws, and immoral or amoral statements.
That’s a good thing. No better way to burn away the bad ideas in ones’ head than to have them exposed to fire.
I hope you stick around. We all gather cruft in life, it’s worth it to occasionally burn some of it off.
Ryan, #255
Violence? You mean the police attacking people?
Oh, you mean the few people who damaged some property. No, it’s not retributive. It’s an outburst of rage because they’re marked for execution by white police officers.
Ryan @255:
Ok, my advice to you is to stop commenting and read this thread.
Then go read the posts in this thread. Warning: there are a *lot* of posts and it is two pages of material. If you choose to dive into it, reading all the posts-hell, reading half of them-will take time. Not a few hours worth of time, but a few days worth of time. It’s a thread with a metric fuckton of links and resources for people to understand racism in the United States. The inciting event that led to the creation of that thread was the death of Michael Brown, Jr. at the hands of ex-police officer Darren Wilson in July 2014. You may have heard of that event. But that thread expands far beyond that event. It discusses relevant material concerning the inherent racism in the USAmerican criminal justice system. It discusses the history of racial violence in the US. What you’ll read (assuming you choose to educate yourself) won’t be pretty. It’s actually pretty fucking horrifying. But you owe it to yourself to end your ignorance.
Another piece of advice if you choose to read that thread: whatever you think you know, set that out of your mind. You’ve displayed quite a bit of ignorance already in this thread (observation, not personal attack), so you need to be prepared to accept that the things you thought you knew were wrong. You have to accept that you are wrong. That’s a simple fact of life. You can reduce some of your ignorance by educating yourself on subjects like racism, prejudice, and bigotry but you have to be willing to learn.
In addition, you might want to read up a bit more about Humanism, if you’re interested. You can start here:
http://americanhumanist.org/Humanism/What_is_Humanism
When it comes to human rights, I suggest you read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
****
If you’re still reading this far into my comment, I want to let you know that I was in a position similar to yours several years ago. I arrogantly thought I had answers to many problems in my life, this country, and around the world. I thought I was informed about important issues. I knew nothing. In fact, I knew less than nothing, bc I wasn’t even aware that there was more I needed to know. A great deal of my education has come as a result of reading comments here at Pharyngula and clicking links provided by commenters. I’ve learned about how pervasive sexism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia are. I’ve learned that not only are internalized racism and homophobia very real, but I, suffer from it. Yes, me-a black gay guy. It’s the result of growing up in a society that is racist and homophobic. I also realized that I had a host of sexist and misogynistic beliefs. It took a genuine attempt on my part to understand these subjects and a willingness to search deep within myself in the dark and dingy corners of my mind. I chose to do so because as I began to realize that I didn’t know as much as I thought I did, I realized I didn’t want to be as ignorantly arrogant. It was hard. Can you imagine what it’s like to be a gay guy confronting the fact that internalized homophobia has led you to dislike other gay people simply because they don’t act like men should? Yeah, that was me. I fell for gender stereotypes that tell us how men and women are supposed to act. Those stereotypes fed into my internalized homophobia. There is so much more that I’ve had to confront, and I’m sure there’s more that I will find in the future. But as I’ve discovered more and more parts of myself I’m not fond of, it has become easier to reject those notions. But I’m not doing so willy nilly. As a freethinker, I’ve come to realize the importance of ensuring that my opinions and beliefs are backed by science, logic, and reason. It’s been immensely important to me, and I think there is value in freethinking for you as well.
I truly hope you take my words to heart, whether or not you decide if you like me or not. As I said, I could care less if you like me, but I do care if you’re a good human being. Because we don’t have enough of those in the world.
Also, Ryan:
Since it doesn’t appear that you’ve read it [my comment @222], here is a portion of a speech Martin Luther King, Jr gave back in 1967. It ought to help you better understand the civil unrest in Baltimore:
Tony.
You always bring the brain train. Don’t ever stop.
Dark Jaguar:
And yet…USAian troops in Iraq…in Afghanistan…drones bombing Yemen…Syria…hawkish politicians drooling with eagerness to attack Iran….
Goodness knows, I’m game to get offa this particular merry-go-round, but a whole lot of people who are shock/horroring about Baltimore…Ferguson…hell, we all know the list, don’t we?…and going on about how “Violence doesn’t settle anything”, do not seem to recognize their implicit hypocrisy.
–
Gonna trudge through the thread, now.
*sigh*
–
Thank you, Marcus.
Salad, #258
I understand that the main reason, and the most important part of this riot is based around the value of human life, however, I don’t see that destroying ANYTHING is the proper response.
Part of the reason my earlier knee jerk reaction was so violent is that, yes, it is a tragedy that a cop killed another innocent person (Black, White, Hispanic, Native American, purple, I don’t care). However, if there is to be destruction of anything, why not make it destruction of public infrastructure, your own personal property, or targeting the police directly?
Why does some random average stranger deserve to have their property destroyed?
Why not speak directly to the Mayor or the Police Chief, someone who may actually be able to influence a change, and if they aren’t able to, petition to have them removed from power in favor of someone who will help enforce change?
My (possibly poorly worded) $0.02
Ryan Dietz,
The protesters ain’t coming for you, dude. I think you are about as safe as safe can be, unlike black people in the US.
If the cops come for you though, your little shotgun isn’t going to save you, Rambo.
Ryan @ 264
I assume that your mistype of Saad’s name was due to an autocorrect?
The answer to your misconception is quoted by Tony @ 260, and elsewhere. Read it. Read the material that’s been linked in other places too. It’s worth it, for your sake.
Well, you clearly know better than the protesters themselves. /s
Tony,
Don’t you know? Expecting white people to educate themselves about racism is the REAL racism. We should treat Rambo Dietz’s uniformed opinion as more valid than the opinions of the people responding in desperation to the danger they are and have been in. /s
Okay, I’ve got to give myself some help here and actually dig out the laptop… First, (probably closer to the 2nd or 3rd strike) against me is that I’m trying to read all this on my phone.
That andthe auto correct is (occasionally) causing trouble as well. I’m sorry Saad, I didn’t mean to misspell your name.
Also, I think I do like you Tony, thank you for the in depth response and the links.
I probably won’t be getting around to reading much more tonight, but if I can get on to this page at work, it will give me a bit of “light” (haha) reading to do between calls tomorrow.
I also want to apologize to all you fine folks for blundering around, and thank you for semi-putting up with my hotheaded and knee jerk responses.
On the one hand, this is so fucking naive that I could cry.
On the other hand, it’s a fucking massive insult, bc African-Americans have been trying this for generations and no one will fucking listen! This is not an idea that holds any merit. In a world where things were a bit more fair and Black Lives actually Mattered, talking to those people in power might actually work. But here in the real world, where things are most decidedly NOT fair and the criminal justice system has been telling black folks for centuries that their lives don’t matter, this bit of advice doesn’t. fucking. help. In fact, it’s less than helpful. It’s condescending and patronizing.
Guess someone didn’t want to take my advice on shutting up and learning. Oh well, I tried.
Ryan would proudly and without compunction blow off someone’s head for threatening his safety.
…but breaking windows is wrong if mere black folks are the ones in danger.
Just say’n.
Or maybe my advice will be taken to heart.
::crosses fingers:;
savant @261:
Thank you for the kind words :)
Ryan, #264
LOL! That’s the best typo of my name I’ve seen so far. :D
They don’t deserve it. Nobody has said they deserve it.
But if one is knowledgeable of the situation, what purpose does it serve to criticize the few protesters who destroy things? It’s an uprising. Black people are being executed on a regular basis on white police officers’ whim. And then the country moves on like nothing happened. Black people are free game for police officers to assault and murder in plain daylight. Tell me in light of all this, what statement would I be making sitting behind my computer saying “Oh, those few people shouldn’t have torched those cars.”
Basically: Destruction of some property as a (very small portion of the) response to wanton destruction of human lives. No way I will focus on the burning car. Not even for a second. Because then I would have to spend the rest of the day speaking against the police to keep it in proportion.
What do you think all the protesters have been doing? And what do you mean directly to the mayor? Is the mayor in a bunker without any phones, TV, or internet?
Jackie, #270
^ Think about that, Ryan.
#269 Why not speak directly to the Mayor or the Police Chief, someone who may actually be able to influence a change
See, that’s part of the problem. I probably could because: white, tech entrepreneur, can potentially spend money for or against a mayoral campaign…. That’s because I’m a Privileged White Guy. If I asked my publicist to start calling city hall and arrange a conversation with the mayor, there’s about a 10% chance it’d happen. If my high school buddy Chris, who owns a huge business in the Baltimore suburbs tried to talk to the mayor, there’d be a 100% chance it would happen. If Tony tried to talk to the mayor, he’d be lucky if he didn’t wind up on a DHS watch-list. Same deal: if I went down to city hall and started politely asking to meet with someone, I’d get a run-around and probably waste my day. But there’d be a 2% chance I’d actually get a meeting (just to make me go away). If Tony tried it, he might get a ride in a police car. And if he was unlucky he might wind up breaking his own neck to make the cops look bad, or something like that.
The thing about privilege is that if you grow up in it (like I did!) it’s like the water that a fish moves through: the fish doesn’t know it’s there. It’s just the fish’s reality. If you want a better understanding of some of that, I highly recommend John Scalzi’s article here: ( http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/ ) That article blew my mind. Blew my mind with realization of how utterly stupid I’ve been for 49 or so years.
Other than Scalzi’s article the one thing (to your question) that made me realize that the US has a serious serious problem is this: when Mark Zuckerberg got annoyed about some government issue regarding Facebook – he called President Obama to talk it over with him. Think about that for a minute. President Obama took his call. I suspect that President Obama wouldn’t take Tony’s call any more than the Mayor of Baltimore would. But you damn sure know the Mayor of Baltimore would take Mark Zuckerberg’s call. Why? Because he’s a billionaire.
You know the old saying “money talks” right? Well, it’s true. Which means the poor are silenced. If I get abused by a cop, I can decide if I want to take out a loan and sic an attorney on them and make them really really unhappy. A poor person has two choices: 1) shut up and take it or 2) just be glad they didn’t hurt you worse. It takes some soul-searching to realize this. When I get stopped by a cop, they are polite and call me ‘sir.’ So I don’t see how bad the cops can be. So, I could be puzzled about what the fuck is wrong with the rioters. But a person whose not privilged as thoroughly as I am would be wondering what the fuck is wrong with the cops. Scratch that. They already know exactly what’s wrong with the cops.
This is also worth a read:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/04/how-baltimore-riots-began-mondawmin-purge
As I mentioned earlier: I grew up in Baltimore. Some of my friends went to the big high school right across from Mondawmin Mall. When school gets out, yes, there are mobs of kids on the street; they are going home. So, apparently, the police thought it would be good crowd control to shut down the buses (to, um, whaaaaat?) and then started firing alerts that there were ‘gangs of kids’ on the street looking for trouble.
Read that and ask yourself “who is part of the problem here?”
You can tell who’s prepared to start a riot by how they dress. Usually, the people who show up at the riot in black body armor with shields and helmets and guns — they’re the ones prepared for the riot. See how that works?
(PS Tony: you’re awesome.)
@ Tony
Regarding your comment # 259.
Thank you.
I have just had my consciousness raised.
AP
liz321: Cameras on all law enforcement in the carrying out of their duties—yes, absolutely! And in a perfect world, that would solve the problem, immediately. Stop it cold.
This is not that world.
Even in an “It’s all good, so long as you Don’t Get Caught world, that’d have a chance of stopping law enforcement officers from continuing to “police” according to what seems to be Time-Honored Tradition—if it hadn’t been demonstrated to the offenders, time after time, and recently, even after Ferguson, when it’s obvious to anyone following current events at all, that for now, at least, People Are Looking—that the evidence will be ignored.
And so, Business goes on As Usual, and they don’t seem to understand that they are doing anything wrong.
In their minds, they aren’t.
–
A Masked Avenger:
And by trying to make the videotape from cop cars (and presumably, individual cameras) unavailable to the public—unless such release is, on a case-by-case basis, approved.
Any guesses as to the biases of the likely “approvers”?
–
80
Marcus @276:
Thank you.
****
AtheistPowerLifter @277:
I’m glad you found my words helpful :)
Baltimore City State’s Attorney just called it an illegal arrest and homicide. Driver of the van getting charged with 2nd degree murder, 5 other officers getting charged with manslaughter and assault.
Damn. Now let’s see a proper jury, and no venue-shopping, and and and…
They’re charging the 6 cops who were suspended with manslaughter to second degree murder and illegal imprisonment of Freddie Gray!!!!
This is a follow up to comment #25, in which urban renewal, or the lack thereof, is discussed as one of the problems faced by black neighborhoods.
Unbelievable. With situations like those in Baltimore staring them in the face, Republicans cut the urban renewal funds.
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/house-budget-urban-renewal-program-cuts-baltimore-riots-117514.html
Cross posted from the Lounge:
Well, thank goodness. Freddie Gray’s death has been ruled a homicide:
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/marilyn-mosby-officers-charged-death-freddie-gray
More on the fact that the face of Justice is making an appearance in Baltimore:
Maddow Blog link
Updated route of Baltimore Police van proves they were deliberately off course with Freddie Gray
While it is encouraging to hear the offending officers are being charged, I’m still expecting disappointment down the line. Let’s hope the legal system doesn’t live down to those expectations.
Nicked from a link over at Tony!‘s blog: The Rough Ride and Police Culture.
(Just in case it isn’t in the 200-ish comments I haven’t read, yet.)
–
While it’s important to remember that it isn’t any where close to being over yet, the fact that the officers are criminally charged is a victory. It’s a victory for the activists, because history and statistics tell us that consequences for murder are extremely rare for cops. Much like their colleagues responsible for the 100+ settled cases of police brutality in Baltimore, these cops likely would not be seriously penalized if it weren’t for the activists in Baltimore (and there’s still a good chance that they won’t). The media would have never paid attention if the protests hadn’t turned into riots. That’s the sad fact. For those who chide the protesters (even though the vast majority were peaceful, and many eye witnesses claim that police harassment of black teens was the catalyst for any escalations) and lecture about non violence, do you think the DOJ would have investigated the Ferguson PD if it weren’t for the riots? The media didn’t show up to Ferguson until there was tear gas and flames.
A prosecutor from Detroit advised Baltimore police to just shoot the protestors:
Great selection of photos:
http://www.motherjones.com/media/2015/04/photos-baltimore-freddie-gray-protest-riot
Here’s a great article for those chiding the protesters for civil unrest:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/kazu-haga/problem-with-wanting-peace-in-baltimore
Informative and iluminating discussion, as usual. Special thanks to Tony.
One thing that I learned today totally boggles my mind and I cannot resist mentioning it, altough it is totally trivial – I just learned, that switchblades are illegal in U.S. on federal level.
When I read this my jaw literally dropped. You can own (multiple) automatic rifles with sniper optic, guns with ammo extension etc. In some states you can even carry them in the open. And republicans are in furor whenever it is proposed that this insanity should be regulated.
And pocket knives with spring are illegal. Whut teh phuck????? Again, I fail to understand the logic that U.S. lawmakers follow.
Charley, never underestimate the US’ willingness to do something racist. Imagine, if you will, which weapon is likely to be owned by a gang member, and which by a uniformed thug or their unathletic supporters.
charly here is a story that is just another data point in the police violence issue that you might find interesting seeing how you were surprised about knife regulations
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/no-charges-against-seattle-officer-who-shot-woodcarver/
uncle frogy
Charly, that switchblade business was indeed rooted in discrimination, or at least fear of those different, from the start. Italians and blacks were the stereotypical carriers.
There is also a ban on what are called “butterfly” knives, which are much slower to open, because they are mostly from the Philippines. Those are the ones where the handle folds in two halves to cover the blade, and opening requires a flashy hand dance.
In addition to all you said about guns, there are knives that open just as fast as a switchblade, that are immensely popular. I refer to the “thumb opening” trend. Many folding knives now have a little knob or hole that allows them to be pushed open by the thumb of the hand holding it. (This is opposed to having to dig with a fingernail of the other hand.) This is faster than a switchblade.
I have a couple of thumb-openers that, when properly oiled, don’t even required the thumb push. Just a shake of the hand, and the blade clacks open, heavier and louder than any switchblade in a bad movie.
The other knife trend is a pocket clip on the side, so the knife isn’t drifting around at the bottom of a pocket. It can be carried like a pen, at a pocket top, or at the waistband, inside or outside. (When I go to school, I trade my knife for a pen, in the same location and reflex.)
I carry a thumb-opener inside the top of my front trouser pocket, with the clip out. (The clip is black plastic, so it doesn’t look like like a knife, and my shirt often hangs over it.) I only carry it as a tool, in a handy location, but I would probably beat a switchblade in a quick-draw and intimidate contest (mine’s much shorter, though). And a butterfly would still be dancing about when mine went clack. (And mine is sturdier and safer to use.)
Anyhow, my point was that two of the common trends among knives make a ban on switchblades totally pointless. The good, honest, rednecks and hunters are carrying flickknives now, ready to hand.
(I once met a trailer-trash lad who had just been evicted and who was transporting his knife collection on the bib of his overalls. A good kid, but damn it was a picture.)
For y’all’s information I’ve added info to the current Morning in America thread, including the full list of charges here, the transcript of prosecutor Mosby’s statement here (warning – it includes a disturbing, step-by-step account of the officers’ callous indifference), and an explanation of the charge of “depraved heart” murder here. Thanks to Tony! and Lynna and everyone else I’ve forgotten for the links.
The rightwing response to Marily Mosby’s announcement has been, in part, to demean her for the crime of being female.
Link
The “justice” system in Baltimore is unjust on several levels, as we’ve seen. Let’s add the bail amounts levied against African Americans to that list.
The officers are charged with more serious crimes, but their bail is less. Sheesh.
Think Progress link
More asinine remarks that were aired on Fox News:
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/05/02/3654162/milwaukee-county-sheriff-charging-officers-freddie-gray-case-human-sacrifice/
I’ve been keeping up on this story, mainly through comedy reports, but still, it’s stunning. Apparently, there’s a “boys will be boys” attitude to riots after a game of sportball. (I hadn’t noticed this attitude, being utterly sickened at sporting riots as I normally am. I’m consistent I tells ya!) There’s apparently a double standard. It bears saying that a LOT of the protesters are doing so peacefully. Among them? The big-name gangs of Baltimore. That one’s a shocker, but certainly welcome. They all declared a truce with each other and are working hard to both aid in the protests and call a cessation to violence where they see it. On Larry Wilmore’s show, they stated their intent to keep this truce going long after the protests end. I hope so, they’re inspiring. (I LOVE a “redemption” story.)
Meanwhile, in the middle of a protest a police van just sorta disappeared a black protester in front of a camera… Not a good look.
Dark Jaguar: Isn’t it fucking amazing how informative those “fake news” comedy programs can be?
Also, I have noticed there is no clear response to sports rioting. I know that when it happens at a local college campus, it is usually viewed with disgust. (It is essentially considered an extension of its perceived party culture, and there is a bit of ageism and classism involved in the disdain and the continued negative reputation of the school, because it is a big state school instead of a nice quiet private college). But the disgust is also mild and dismissive. There is no real condemnation of it, because it is viewed as essentially ridiculous. Silly and absurd. It is not taken seriously at all, except by those who actually suffer directly because of it. I suppose you could say something similar about Black Friday stampedes and similar shit. It is viewed as horrible yet also comical and not worthy of any serious criticism or condemnation, because it is just stupid shit that stupid people do. A dark comedy version of America’s Funniest Home Videos. A bitter joke about humans basically being pack animals. A wacky news story to briefly look at as a palate cleanser between updates on the latest gun deaths and coverage of the contenders for 2020 elections.
But when riots happen due to anything resembling a cause, especially a cause perceived as liberal, it is not a matter to just briefly bring up, shake your head a little, and move on. Suddenly a matter of much criticism, consternation, debate, and handwringing. Though, in fairness, it is precisely because there is a cause or a point that this probably happens. There is obviously no point to the sports riots, but there is also obviously a point to these ones. And that may be way the double standard exists, aside from racism and classism and police apologetics and antipathy towards liberal politics and so on. But I still imagine all of those play a role still.