Timby's most recent post is right on point, as was the article he posted earlier, which I am linking here again because he was right that EVERYONE who cares about this should read it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-powell/why-baltimore-is-burning_b_7161432.html
I'm tired. I'm tired of this. It's well beyond anything reasonable.
And that's coming from someone who has the luxury of being tired of it FROM the perspective of an observer and frustrated citizen. I don't have to LIVE this. I am white. I will never know what it's like to actually live with this fear, this outrage, this helplessness. I am outraged over what is happening, but it's not happening TO me.
To tell people to stop being angry, stop smashing things, destroying property because it makes them look bad or it's not effective or people who aren't police shouldn't be dragged into this comes across as very arrogant and dismissive. "Just don't loot or smash things, okay?" We've heard it before and it's no more constructive now than it was then.
Because unless your stance is that violence and rioting in the streets is never, ever justified under ANY circumstances, then the idea that it's not justified here is shit. People are dying, being murdered and abused left and right, because of a racist, classist power structure that has been stepping on their necks for decades, centuries. Of COURSE what's happening is justified, if violence is EVER justified as a response to ANYTHING. The only way what's happening isn't justified is, again, if you believe violence is never justified, period. In which case, I don't entirely agree, but that'd be a consistent stance at least. Of course, it would require you to condemn just about everything that led the USA to exist as unjustified and wrong.
Property damage versus people's lives. Even disregarding this very good point, the two can't really be compared anyway. Are a few of those who are smashing things opportunists who are just smashing things because they can? Sure, probably. Doesn't matter. The larger issue isn't changed by that.
http://supermodelbountyhunter.tumbl...01/america-wakiewakie-all-violence-is-not-the
And how much of it is really "unprovoked"? Perhaps some of the violence committed was frustration in reaction to this? (Another bit about this here). How is this justified on the part of the police? If I were a student there, or a parent, or a member of that community, I'd be pretty damned upset, too. Even acknowledging the looting and property destruction that has taken place at the hands of protestors, nothing happens in a vacuum. Police threaten and abuse and arrest people even when the protests AREN'T violent; in response to this, people become violent at the next protest, and we're supposed to blame the protestors? You don't understand how the police grossly mishandling both violent and non-violent protests is PART of this whole larger issue?
http://supermodelbountyhunter.tumblr.com/post/117611352791/proletarianrevenge-melanie-from-baltimore
Based on the travesty that was the protests in Ferguson last year (the travesty being what the police did and caused), I have no reason to take the side of Baltimore government and law enforcement when it comes to the questions of just how much of the violence is really just "citizens deciding to become violent on their own without any provocation." The benefit of the doubt, surely, must go to the protestors and the people writing these blog posts and tweets. Not the police department who killed Freddie Grey and won't tell us why and has a history of abusive tactics and brutality and corruption, and who roll in with military vehicles and assault rifles at the first sign of PROTEST, and then throw rocks back at protestors. Not in response to this mythical beast of "unprovoked violence on the part of protestors", but the existence of a protest, period. All of this, of course, is nothing new.
The last thing I've seen in this thread that I wanted to address was: unrest and violent protest isn't justified until everything else has been exhausted, some have said. What hasn't been exhausted, already? There have been peaceful protests. There have been letters and campaigns for change. There have been blog posts and tweets and coverage (mostly from non-mainstream media sources, since the mainstream media usually does whatever it can to make dead black people out to be scary would-have-been dangerous felons). It's plainly obvious that what's happening in Baltimore is the straw that broke the camel's back, not some sudden explosion of unrest that came out of left field in response to this ONE particular incident (as horrific and unacceptable as that one incident is on its own anyway!).
It's quite clear that peaceful protest and other completely non-violent means of drawing attention to this situation haven't worked.
Finally, as I was writing this and collecting the links I've scattered throughout the post, I stumbled on this. This happened while the situation in Baltimore was unfolding.
If this doesn't demonstrate what the REAL problem is in this whole mess, I don't know what would.
I'm tired. I'm tired of this. It's well beyond anything reasonable.
And that's coming from someone who has the luxury of being tired of it FROM the perspective of an observer and frustrated citizen. I don't have to LIVE this. I am white. I will never know what it's like to actually live with this fear, this outrage, this helplessness. I am outraged over what is happening, but it's not happening TO me.
To tell people to stop being angry, stop smashing things, destroying property because it makes them look bad or it's not effective or people who aren't police shouldn't be dragged into this comes across as very arrogant and dismissive. "Just don't loot or smash things, okay?" We've heard it before and it's no more constructive now than it was then.
Because unless your stance is that violence and rioting in the streets is never, ever justified under ANY circumstances, then the idea that it's not justified here is shit. People are dying, being murdered and abused left and right, because of a racist, classist power structure that has been stepping on their necks for decades, centuries. Of COURSE what's happening is justified, if violence is EVER justified as a response to ANYTHING. The only way what's happening isn't justified is, again, if you believe violence is never justified, period. In which case, I don't entirely agree, but that'd be a consistent stance at least. Of course, it would require you to condemn just about everything that led the USA to exist as unjustified and wrong.
Property damage versus people's lives. Even disregarding this very good point, the two can't really be compared anyway. Are a few of those who are smashing things opportunists who are just smashing things because they can? Sure, probably. Doesn't matter. The larger issue isn't changed by that.
http://supermodelbountyhunter.tumbl...01/america-wakiewakie-all-violence-is-not-the
And how much of it is really "unprovoked"? Perhaps some of the violence committed was frustration in reaction to this? (Another bit about this here). How is this justified on the part of the police? If I were a student there, or a parent, or a member of that community, I'd be pretty damned upset, too. Even acknowledging the looting and property destruction that has taken place at the hands of protestors, nothing happens in a vacuum. Police threaten and abuse and arrest people even when the protests AREN'T violent; in response to this, people become violent at the next protest, and we're supposed to blame the protestors? You don't understand how the police grossly mishandling both violent and non-violent protests is PART of this whole larger issue?
http://supermodelbountyhunter.tumblr.com/post/117611352791/proletarianrevenge-melanie-from-baltimore
Based on the travesty that was the protests in Ferguson last year (the travesty being what the police did and caused), I have no reason to take the side of Baltimore government and law enforcement when it comes to the questions of just how much of the violence is really just "citizens deciding to become violent on their own without any provocation." The benefit of the doubt, surely, must go to the protestors and the people writing these blog posts and tweets. Not the police department who killed Freddie Grey and won't tell us why and has a history of abusive tactics and brutality and corruption, and who roll in with military vehicles and assault rifles at the first sign of PROTEST, and then throw rocks back at protestors. Not in response to this mythical beast of "unprovoked violence on the part of protestors", but the existence of a protest, period. All of this, of course, is nothing new.
The last thing I've seen in this thread that I wanted to address was: unrest and violent protest isn't justified until everything else has been exhausted, some have said. What hasn't been exhausted, already? There have been peaceful protests. There have been letters and campaigns for change. There have been blog posts and tweets and coverage (mostly from non-mainstream media sources, since the mainstream media usually does whatever it can to make dead black people out to be scary would-have-been dangerous felons). It's plainly obvious that what's happening in Baltimore is the straw that broke the camel's back, not some sudden explosion of unrest that came out of left field in response to this ONE particular incident (as horrific and unacceptable as that one incident is on its own anyway!).
It's quite clear that peaceful protest and other completely non-violent means of drawing attention to this situation haven't worked.
Finally, as I was writing this and collecting the links I've scattered throughout the post, I stumbled on this. This happened while the situation in Baltimore was unfolding.
If this doesn't demonstrate what the REAL problem is in this whole mess, I don't know what would.
