3 Things To Think About Before Judging Rioters 1.) There are plenty of studies/books/papers dealing with rioting. Its not as simple as judging people for destroying businesses and property. Part of the issue with rioting is the broad strokes people tend to make in blaming a large set of people for rioting instead of the minor set within the larger set of protesters. This both devalues the mostly peaceful protesters attempts at demonstration and lawful assembly as well as removes attention from the source of the uprising to begin with, which is a complete and utter distrust in law enforcement and the government writ large. Diffusing the blame widely for what violence occurs instead of pinpointing the sources of violence (the situation that initiated the assembly to begin with) actually perpetuates more violence. People being distracted by the rioters is the fault of the distracted people, not of the protesters who are doing what they need to do within the law. 2.) There is a historical precedent of riots being initiated by the very force the original protests are against (i.e. planted antagonists). So there is little proof or media interest in proving who actually destroys anything during riots. 3.) You cannot tell folks to have faith in the law, in evidence being not tampered with, or in narratives from legislative/judiciary bodies when those folks have dealt with the aftermath of slavery and Jim Crow, lynching, red lining, white people rioting in all Black neighborhoods with zero reprimand and no reparations to rebuild, the Tuskegee experiments, M.O.V.E. bombing, COINTELPRO, multiple assassinations, forced sterilization, stop-and-frisk, among many other racially motivated crimes against Black people perpetrated by the city/state/nation that would lead to generational rage and distrust of the law, which can lead to intracommunal rioting where people who are actual citizens of a neighborhood destroy their own neighborhood because they do not feel that they own anything to begin with and surely do not feel as though they will be heard in any other capacity because they had not been heard that way before, ever.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 01:08:53 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015