Seems to be a developing story with implied ties to Ferguson.
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2015/04...inks-between-baltimore-and-ferguson-violence/
http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2015/04...inks-between-baltimore-and-ferguson-violence/
Baltimore Rioting, Looting OK According to Mayor
- Thread starter Pilgrim
- Start date
The chicken or the egg? Someone who is always a likely target of police (you know, young, male, black) is gonna constantly be in trouble.
The Chinese-American community doesn't really have a reason to riot, not a lot of system injustices they are having to endure. There have been several anti-Chinese riots in this country though, mostly by white people wanting to get rid of the local Chinese population.
I do want to check with you on the use of "the" as in "The" Chinese-American community, though. The reason I bring it up is, "the" African-American community isn't rioting in Baltimore, either. A rather small segment of a vastly larger African-American community in this country is rioting in Baltimore.
Again, "the"? The Hispanic-American community, no. But there have been several riots with primarily Hispanic-Americans as the participants, primarily in and around Los Angeles and Miami, but there have been plenty of others.
Depends on how you want to define "frequent," but yes, lots of them. Of course, no American minority community has experienced quite the same kind of brutality and discrimination and systemic injustice as the African-American community and , so riots by other minority communities aren't as frequent.
In any case, here's a list.
You betcha it is. Those in power want to keep it, and anything that threatens that power has historically been outlawed.
One problem with peaceable assembly is that, all too often, when that assembly is to protest an injustice, those who created the injustice are the least likely to respond favorably to the pleas for justice. Such peaceable assemblies can easily be dismissed and ignored. And when peaceable assembly time and time again gets ignored, there are few other options left.
I'm not sure any rioting has ever been characterized as innocuous, other than possibly by those in power who thought they were invincible, but as rioting is most often a response to an injustice or brutal oppression, any nation that has fallen because of riots probably needed to fall.
Of course there are ties to Ferguson. People from sea to shining sea are getting fed up with it all, and it's likely to get worse before it gets better. Ferguson and Baltimore aren't isolated. They're both symptoms of a much larger problem. Like Obama said, this isn't new, it's been going on for a long time, and it's not isolated to Baltimore, or Ferguson, or Oakland, or Toledo, or Cincinnati, or New York.
He matched the discription of a wanted for armed robbery suspect.
Someone asked the question.
If you view it in terms of "criminality, pure and simple," then sure it is. But rioting is almost always society itself in rebellion against an injustice.
Interesting phrase, "If left unanswered." To those who view rioting as "criminality, pure and simple," that means to put down the riots and punish those who rioted. To others, the only answer they're looking for is... justice. A nation state, or a local community, that continues to practice injustice, will fall.
Acceptable? No. But sometimes inevitable when all other attempts at redress is ignored, and in some cases, even justified.
The same reason they're talking about "where are the parents of these rioters?" It's a misdirection. When you're in the custody of the state, the state has a responsibility for your health and well being. He was arrested, according to the police report, "without force or incident." They put him into a transport vehicle, and a few minutes later he developed a partially severed spinal cord, a crushed larynx, and broken ribs. Better to talk about rioter's parents and what the guy was charged with after he was arrested.
Rioting is criminal behavior. Nothing but harm to the local community results from rioting. Rioting severely damages a community's reputation. It causes economic harm to the community that can last for decades. People move away from such places. Businesses move away. It causes an already distressed community to spiral even further down. Property values fall. The tax base is diminished. Local infrastructure suffers. Schools fail. Employment opportunities dry up. Additional stress is placed on those who choose to stay. A sense of despair and desperation settles in. Rioting is the ultimate self-defeating behavior.
Democrats have controlled Baltimore for decades. Implementing Democratic policies and ideas for decades.
Republican and conservative ideas that would likely improve things for their citizens, mostly shut out of the process. Elections have consequences, sadly.
Republican and conservative ideas that would likely improve things for their citizens, mostly shut out of the process. Elections have consequences, sadly.
I would disagree. I see them as two separate issues. Not to do that does nothing but relieve parents of any responsibility. That is a different issue than mistreatment by police.
@aristotle nailed it. Can we say Detroit 1967. What is happening in Baltimore happened in Detroit and the condition of Detroit today is a direct result of that incident.
I'm going to assume you're being facetious and that you don't actually believe any of that.
As an example, the riots that were sparked by the Parliament's 1773 adoption of the Tax Act resulted in full-blown revolution and eventual American Independence.
(cue the flag, cue the music,
Mine eyes have seen the glory
of the coming of the Lord...)
Not only do good things come from rioting, but rioting is actually economically efficient. As with any cost of goods, punishing bad behavior increases the costs of engaging in such behavior and thereby reduces the amount of it. This is the underlying theory of most criminal justice schemes, and why the initial knee-jerk reaction to rioting, because many people think, as you said "rioting is criminal behavior." But such an "answer" doesn't actually work in punishing rioting. If it did, people wouldn't riot. So punishing rioting doesn't work, yet rioting punishes exactly what the rioting is in response to. Rioting that occurs in response to gross police misconduct and criminal system abuses imposes costs on doing those things. It signals to police authorities that they risk this sort of destructive mayhem if they continue on like this. Punishing rioting doesn't deter rioting, but rioting is a deterrent to the abuses. All else equal, this should reduce the amount of police misconduct as criminal justice authorities take precautions to prevent the next big riot. And if police misconduct and other injustices are reduced, it absolutely reduces rioting.
Riots are good for democracy. Riots are complex, uncoordinated crowd activities, and no one defends every criminal act committed by every rioter. Even in riots motivated by egalitarian and democratic aspirations, individuals often indulge in indefensible attacks on bystanders. We should and do reject the wrongdoings in riots, as we do in other contexts, but we cannot make the mistake of letting the wrongdoings divert and deflect or obscure the fact that outbreaks of determined public defiance can often shift the balance of power between ruling elites and the working-class and poor people that they exploit and oppress. People long dismissed by the powerful suddenly become impossible to ignore or dismiss, once their insistence on being heard finds expression in confrontations with the legal order and its police.
In the aftermath of riots, authorities often set up "commissions" designed to defuse the tension and redress problems. Initiatives are announced, programs are launched. Usually, of course, these do little to advance the public interest, and we rightly view these stratagems with a cynical eye as they come off mostly as lip service. Yet, regardless of their effectiveness, they tell us something important: grievances long ignored now have to be taken into account; that a strategy is now needed to undermine the new boldness of those no longer content to suffer in silence.
It is the very boldness of rioting that serves democracy. The defiance of the riot puts the powerful on the defensive and creates an opening for other, more constructive forms of organizing to take root. To turn the tide against injustice, we need movements that are relentless, escalating and with a broadening base of participation. Riots are no substitute for this effort. But, to the extent that they enable the silenced, ignored and oppressed to find their voice, rioting is an important part of democratic politics. It's a healthy dose of plant food for the Tree of Liberty.