Baltimore (AKA, civil unrest continues in USA)

[Shane Wahl]

Just wondering what people thought about the situation there. I don't have the time to get it started with my own thoughts right now, but will soon.

[Zachary]

I understand people are upset, and should be granted the freedom to express their frustration, but there are legal and illegal ways of doing that. That is why over 200 people have been arrested. 

 

I guess they would probably argue that the legal avenues of such expressions don't accomplish much. Will this though? Will this change anything? If anything, it gives cops more authority as they now are told to increase their aggression to stop the rioting. 

[Mike Sixel]

I have many thoughts:

 

1. It is only going to get worse. Look at history. As the elite take more and more, and give less and less, the masses rise up. This is likely to get worse.

 

2. I admire peaceful protest, even if "illegal". Like, you know, trespassing.

 

3. I have little tolerance for violence, but I totally get where it comes from. There is a lot of anger, and a lot of just doing shtuff for shtuff's sake. 

 

more to come when not at work.

[TheLeviathan]

I think both sides of this issue generally have heaping piles of blame to go around.  There are systemic failures in the justice system and with police forces that are causing problems.  There are also significant cultural and community problems in these areas that are worse than most people want to admit or acknowledge.

 

Combine the two and you get this vicious cycle.

[gunnarthor]

I was actually pretty impressed by John Angelos statements on the riots, myself.

 

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/04/orioles-john-angelos-baltimore-protests-mlb

 

"That said, my greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good, hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state."

 

 

[PseudoSABR]

Just some quick thoughts.  Anytime there's civil unrest and/or public assembly with large masses of people, there's plenty of other people who direct that public energy towards destruction and looting. These aren't the same people, though it's presented as such in the media.  Often the populations that suffer the most, that have the most need to assemble and protest, lack the organizational expertise and infrastructure to manage such large masses of people without incident.  

 

I just hope some people don't use the destruction and looting to justify inhumane police tactics.  No one--not even the guilty--deserve the casual brutalities that have become commonplace law enforcement techniques.  

[TheLeviathan]

 

I just hope some people don't use the destruction and looting to justify inhumane police tactics.  No one--not even the guilty--deserve the casual brutalities that have become commonplace law enforcement techniques.  

 

I totally agree.  The flip side is also true - there needs to be a better respect for law and common decency from some segments of the population.  (Segments that cross racial lines and have more to do with communities)

[PseudoSABR]

 

I was actually pretty impressed by John Angelos statements on the riots, myself.

 

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/04/orioles-john-angelos-baltimore-protests-mlb

 

"That said, my greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good, hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state."

Right. That's pretty impressive.  It begs the question who do the police work for? Who does the law work for? 

[PseudoSABR]

 

I totally agree.  The flip side is also true - there needs to be a better respect for law and common decency from some segments of the population.  (Segments that cross racial lines and have more to do with communities)

There's going to be no respect of the law, if the law is carried out in a way that neglects common decency.   A society cannot expect deference from a population its laws seem not to serve.  

 

While I agree, in the ideal, the filpside would also be true--that every population would show respect of law--but in this instance, I don't think having that expectation is realistic or fair. 

 

[PseudoSABR]

http://i.imgur.com/l8fAR18.jpg

[Shane Wahl]

Yeah, I went through a lot of articles today that made "The Wire" look like "Happy Days" or something. $6 million in lawsuits for police brutality awarded in the past 4 years. Cops basically laying in wait for school-age children as they got off of buses (then those kids started throwing rocks). Thousands of people engaged in peaceful protests, but they aren't angry black males, so no media attention. Fear-mongering garbage about gangs coming together to attack police (they merely called a truce to protest). 

 

With regard to that last point, however--it certainly is true that the established authorities do have that fear. They fear the end of the days of being able to merely watch black people kill each other and the beginning of the days when black people stand together united and come after them.

 

[glunn]

Player A:  17 year old black teenager in Baltimore who riots out of anger.

 

Player B:   55 year old Wall Street billionaire who made hundreds of millions of dollars through fraud and helped crash our economy.

 

Which player is worse?

 

 

[Pius Jefferson]

 

Right. That's pretty impressive.  It begs the question who do the police work for? Who does the law work for? 

 

They work for the same people have run Baltimore into the ground. The same people that John Angelos gives millions of dollars to because they supposedly care about the poor.

[TheLeviathan]

There's going to be no respect of the law, if the law is carried out in a way that neglects common decency.   A society cannot expect deference from a population its laws seem not to serve.  

 

While I agree, in the ideal, the filpside would also be true--that every population would show respect of law--but in this instance, I don't think having that expectation is realistic or fair.

 

In Baltimore that appears to be true, I was speaking to the larger issue which is not so lopsided. I'd highly recommend Brian Willinghams book "Soul of a black cop". It should be required reading for anyone that has never directly worked with the criminal population. It is a hard dose of reality about the mindset of many young men and about just how difficult police work can be in the face of such awful indifference to basic human values. It mirrored many of my experiences that drove me out of social work/corrections/youth work in the Chicago area. It's a vital part of the issue that the right tries to argue but often does so cartoonishly and the left pretends isn't real or only exists in the minds of racists.

[biggentleben]

There were idiots who thought that winning a collegiate hockey championship was a reason to cause destruction and damage others' and public property.  A possibly racially motivated shooting of a young man could certainly flare up those same type of people who often are looking for what would be emotional unrest within the larger community to take advantage of their own destructive natures as part of that emotional movement.

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

I have many thoughts:

 

1. It is only going to get worse. Look at history. As the elite take more and more, and give less and less, the masses rise up. This is likely to get worse.

 

2. I admire peaceful protest, even if "illegal". Like, you know, trespassing.

 

3. I have little tolerance for violence, but I totally get where it comes from. There is a lot of anger, and a lot of just doing shtuff for shtuff's sake. 

 

more to come when not at work.

I was going to respond but Mike pretty much summed up how I feel about the situation.

 

People don't riot just for funsies. There is a lot of frustration and anger pent up behind these outbursts and we'd be wise to examine the disease, not the symptoms.

[biggentleben]

So, this is something a friend of mine posted yesterday, and it's gotten a lot of positive reception from those of all races that basically state that he nailed it on the head:

 

"I've been thinking about Freddy Grey a lot recently. Again? Seriously? Is this some sort of epidemic of racial violence? And then I had a chilling thought. What if this treatment of black Americans has been going on all along, and Black people are finally able to use smart phones to prove that they were not trying to "cause the officer harm"?

 

And how would I feel if I suddenly realized that the experience of my people was exclusive to my people; that the experience of black people was so foreign to white people that they couldn't possibly believe that it happened?

 

I would be enraged. I would be Jesus-clearing-the-temple enraged. I would burn the vehicles of my oppressors and shout about the injustice from the rooftops. I would say, "No more! I don't want my children to ever experience this. Not in Baltimore. Not anywhere."

 

Lord have mercy."

[Shane Wahl]

Chris Hayes gives some perspective

 

http://www.upworthy.com/he-shows-how-the-news-talks-about-black-people-by-talking-about-white-people-instead

 

It's important because until you really hear the words identifying "you" (if you are white) you might just not notice how pervasive the whole framing of this is conducted by the mainstream media.

 

[TheLeviathan]

Hayes satire is important and valuable for perspective.  The article below is good as well.  This is an incredibly salient point: (And the the subsequent examples)

 

Sadly, the effects of the blatant discrimination African-Americans experienced more than 60 years ago can still be felt today.

 

 

Absolutely true.  Especially with the asinine way we fund public schools and the way all politicians ignore the people with the most need.  However, the conclusion bugs me a little bit.  It's true that black Americans have been and continue to be short-changed in awful ways, but this domino effect that is harming blacks more than any other does imply another half of this that so many left-leaning people ignore.  (And too many right-leaning people over-stress)

 

This has, by virtue of these problems, largely become a network of black issues.  Not because these people are black, but because of the circumstances.  We all need to band together to alter the circumstances, but merely changing the exterior factors won't fix the problem without those we're trying to help being accepting of the opportunities.  That could be a long and painful road from my experiences with young black men from these areas.

[formerly33]

 

Player A:  17 year old black teenager in Baltimore who riots out of anger.

 

Player B:   55 year old Wall Street billionaire who made hundreds of millions of dollars through fraud and helped crash our economy.

 

Which player is worse?

I don't think that this is a legitimate comparison. Is this 17-year-old rioting because of the said billionaire, or is he rioting because everyone else is doing it because, according to them, an innocent African American was killed unjustly?

 

By the way, who came up with the phrase "peaceful protesting"?

[Hrbowski]

One of the main problems is the media; when things like this occur they always focus on the bad people (that is their job, so I can't blame them), but people who watch/read the news, no matter what background 

you come from, are afraid, whether it is black people who are afraid of the police or officers who are afraid of black people, and this often times brings violence.

 

Another thing I would like to say is that during protests there is never an excuse for violence, even if someone was killed, all it does is make matters worse, whether it is throwing bananas and donuts at police cars or beating people.

[Hrbowski]

 

http://i.imgur.com/l8fAR18.jpg

Class act by the peaceful protestors.

[Hrbowski]

I thought this was a pretty good read:

 

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2447345-baltimores-best-high-school-football-player-reacts-to-freddie-gray-riots

[formerly33]

 

I thought this was a pretty good read:

 

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2447345-baltimores-best-high-school-football-player-reacts-to-freddie-gray-riots

Thanks for the link. I enjoyed and appreciated it. Glad to read about the classy people who stand up for what they believe to be right in a classy way. That's so much more effective. They know that it takes respect to earn respect.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Thanks for the link. I enjoyed and appreciated it. Glad to read about the classy people who stand up for what they believe to be right in a classy way. That's so much more effective. They know that it takes respect to earn respect.

Not trying to pick on you, but I respectfully disagree. Being polite and classy and protesting nonviolently didn't seem to raise awareness of the police brutality issue one bit.

 

For example, if the protests to the Michael Brown killing hadn't gotten violent, would the protests have gotten as much coverage? Doubt it. And then, would it come to light that Ferguson is 66% black, but the Ferguson police department is 90% white? Personally, I don't think I would have learned very much about the police brutality issue if the violent protests hadn't happened. I'm not advocating violence, I'm just throwing the whole idea out there.

[formerly33]

 

Not trying to pick on you, but I respectfully disagree. Being polite and classy and protesting nonviolently didn't seem to raise awareness of the police brutality issue one bit.

For example, if the protests to the Michael Brown killing hadn't gotten violent, would the protests have gotten as much coverage? Doubt it. And then, would it come to light that Ferguson is 66% black, but the Ferguson police department is 90% white? Personally, I don't think I would have learned very much about the police brutality issue if the violent protests hadn't happened. I'm not advocating violence, I'm just throwing the whole idea out there.

Just because the percentages varied in one city doesn't mean that the police force is prejudiced. Maybe there weren't as many blacks who tried to become police. So I disagree with you on that one. The main thing is that there were indeed African Americans on the Ferguson police force, and they were targeted in the riots along with the whites. Another thing that disgusts me is that the protestors were especially targeting people of Hispanic and oriental ethnicity.

 

While I agree with you that there are bad cops, you can't stereotype all police, and that is what is happening. Now, there are plenty of bad African Americans, but you can't stereotype all African Americans based on a small percentages' actions. I would never do that.There are plenty of bad Caucasians. I don't think of blacks in a different light than I think of whites. I believe that all men are created equal, and therefore all men should have equal opportunities.

 

That said, these issues got plenty of coverage before the rioting. Also, is the rioting making the general populace think better of blacks than they used to? Hardly. If anything, the rioters' immature behavior is creating a lot of disrespect all over the country (if not world), and while I don't disrespect blacks in general, I have a hard time feeling respect for these "peaceful protestors" who are making trouble for themselves as much as they are for whites.

 

I didn't mean to get this into political discussions here, but since you replied to me I feel like it's my duty to go on record and say what I believe. And don't get me wrong. I'm not stereotyping colored people. I just think that the rioters (and notice that I say "rioters," not "blacks," as some people will have it) are out of control and aren't helping matters at all.

[Mike Sixel]

 

I don't think that this is a legitimate comparison. Is this 17-year-old rioting because of the said billionaire, or is he rioting because everyone else is doing it because, according to them, an innocent African American was killed unjustly?

 

By the way, who came up with the phrase "peaceful protesting"?

 

Disagree....the rich guy is worse, much worse.

[Mike Sixel]

Never read 1 person say all cops are bad. Not one.

[formerly33]

 

Disagree....the rich guy is worse, much worse.

Whether he is worse or not (and that is an opinion), it has nothing to do with this discussion and is not a legitimate comparison. They have nothing to do with each other.

[formerly33]

 

Never read 1 person say all cops are bad. Not one.

Of course not. Everyone is aware of the fact that there are colored cops. But when they say "All white cops are bad," they are stereotyping - exactly what they are protesting against.

 

Hmm.