To riot? The case of political vandalism...

[Timsup2nothin]

I didn't address it because it strikes me as irrelevant to this conversation. Your comments are relevant if they are trying to send the message "the police are ineffective", but I was under the impression that the message was "the police are corrupt and abusing their power". I don't see how random violence helps sell that message at all.

The people who have the mayor's ear frankly do not care if the police are corrupt and abusing their power. You can't send them that message, because to a greater or lesser extent they already know.

Now, when those people start thinking "the police can't keep our stuff safe" they will immediately start pouring demands in the mayor's ear. And they start thinking that when the fires start.

 

[useless]

That said though, couldn't they have found a better candidate to riot over? This guy who died had been arrested over 20 times in 7 years for dealing cocaine and other offenses. He's not exactly an upstanding, contributing member of the community and while I absolutely do not condone the police actions, no one is going to miss him outside of his immediate family.

It's a continution of a trend of american police killing black people with very little justification/ in dubious circumstances. They let Adam Lanza live for god sake

 

[JollyRoger]

And in New York, they tracked that coyote for days without shooting or tazing it. Didn't even do a stop and frisk.

 

[useless]

And in New York, they tracked that coyote for days without shooting or tazing it. Didn't even do a stop and frisk.

Didn't even try to choke or suffocate it either

 

[Wolfbeckett]

The people who have the mayor's ear frankly do not care if the police are corrupt and abusing their power. You can't send them that message, because to a greater or lesser extent they already know.

Now, when those people start thinking "the police can't keep our stuff safe" they will immediately start pouring demands in the mayor's ear. And they start thinking that when the fires start.

How has that worked out in Ferguson? Any trend toward sweeping reform there?

This police problem is a nationwide problem, we need nationwide solutions.

 

[Berzerker]

well my my, arson and looting are a public service

 

[Timsup2nothin]

How has that worked out in Ferguson? Any trend toward sweeping reform there?

Well, the feds have their hooks into the FPD to the hilt. If results of the LA riots and the Cincinnati riots are any indication I'd guess there will be.

This police problem is a nationwide problem, we need nationwide solutions.

I agree. There is no indication that anything other than nationwide rioting is going to motivate anyone to solve this nationwide problem, since there has not been any local effort to solve the local aspects without local rioting.

Eventually all the little local riots will be taken in a larger context, or the larger context will just become overwhelmingly obvious. That's why the thread I started is titled "How many riots does it take?"

 

[warpus]

I wouldn't equate "white Americans" to "white America". The former simply describes the aggregate of Americans who happen to be white; the latter describes that part of American society which is self-consciously white to the exclusion of being anything else.

So the latter is basically self-absorbed racists, or something similar?

 

[BvBPL]

Do you mean that a civil disturbance can only be called a "riot" if it is non-political, or that by escalating to a riot, it loses its political character? It's not clear from your post what you mean.

I'm not sure I have a clear answer. I think an event can turn from a protest to a riot and a person can be both a protester and a rioter over the course of an event. Still, I think it is important to distinguish between the two.

NC-1701's initial post used the two terms interchangeably. That's not a good idea because it makes all the protesters synonymous with rioters. It suggests that an event that starts as a protest and becomes a riot does not have a message that people should listen to from the start.

 

[Azale]

well my my, arson and looting are a public service

If they had just arsoned payday loan places, then yes.

there's always next time I guess...

 

[JollyRoger]

 

[Berzerker]

If they had just arsoned payday loan places, then yes.

there's always next time I guess...

harder to burn with the cash gone

 

[JollyRoger]

Baltimore looks like the University of Kentucky after a Final Four loss.