Baltimore Riots!

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

The kid on Home Alone 2 threw a brick through a store window to set off the alarm when the bandits were robbing the toy store. He shouldn’t be deprived of his freedom. So I can’t agree with the “FOR WHATEVER REASON” part.

Excellent point Kendra.

Can you name other Hollywood productions that justify property damage? Or better yet any REAL LIFE incidents in which property damage and looting were justified??

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

I see your point, but how is that going to change/help the kid? If anything a term in jail will only make them a better criminal with more friends.

For proof of this, just look at how full all the jails are…obviously putting people in cages does not reduce or stop the criminal behavior, people STILL murder, STILL steal, STILL cheat, etc etc. if prison worked why are so many people still offending? Its pretty clear it has not, so why keep the doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result (btw, that is the definition of insanity) LOL.

To “change/help the kid” will require social, educational, and parental (name removed by moderator)ut…NOT lax law enforcement.

Thugs and criminals who murdered, robbed others, cheated and rioted…cannot harm society while they are in jail. So while they are in jail, decent society is a little safer for awhile.

 

[Deep_Roots]

There is obviously little parental discipline in that community. There is also little respect for private property as well as authority. This starts at home. I would venture to say that IF the vast majority of Mothers in that community even knew what was going on they would have been out there along with their kids helping themselves to the spoils of the riot.

“in that community.”

People, are we just gonna let this post go without calling out the subtle racism it belies?

Look, here’s the deal. I live in Baltimore. I teach at Douglass (the school that has been on the news regarding all of this). My school and my kids are from the neighborhood this happened in.

Stop speaking with authority about things you don’t understand.

When Langston Hughes wrote “Harlem” (the poem many call “A Dream Deferred”), he presented the reader with a number of possible scenarios for what might happen when a dream is kept at arms length.

The last line is “Or does it explode?”

Without condoning what happened in Baltimore (bearing in mind the VAST majority of the Baltimore Uprising has been peaceful!) on that Saturday and the following Monday night…I must say that I understand it. When an entire generation grows up in an area so deprived, cut off, and maligned; in an area devoid of decent jobs, struggling schools, and crime; in an area treated by police and politicians as an occupied territory and where basic civil rights are an afterthought…something is going to happen.

In the words of Hughes: sometimes that something is a drying up, sometimes an infection, sometimes a heaviness…but sometimes it’s an explosion.

I don’t condone, but I understand.

Some of you have no idea what you’re talking about and have NEVER had contact with real poverty, violence, and the impact of decades of institutionalized racism, in your entire lives.

Listen to the people, don’t speak unless you know.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Without condoning what happened in Baltimore (bearing in mind the VAST majority of the Baltimore Uprising has been peaceful!) on that Saturday and the following Monday night…I must say that I understand it. When an entire generation grows up in an area so deprived, cut off, and maligned; in an area devoid of decent jobs, struggling schools, and crime; in an area treated by police and politicians as an occupied territory and where basic civil rights are an afterthought…something is going to happen.

That’s not saying much about 50 years of liberal democratic leadership…

 

[Deep_Roots]

That’s not saying much about 50 years of liberal democratic leadership…

Maybe, maybe not. I am not sure you can draw much if a correlation. Of course, jobs left our cities as a result of national, state, and local policies over the course of decades. Those policies span dems and repubs.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Maybe, maybe not. I am not sure you can draw much if a correlation. Of course, jobs left our cities as a result of national, state, and local policies over the course of decades. Those policies span dems and repubs.

Ha!

I see a big correlation.

Baltimore received $1.8 BILLION from President Obama’s stimulus package in 2009. Where did it go?

The people of your community (Baltimore) have been electing liberal democrats for the past 50 years and their dream has been **“kept at arms length.” ** When the explosion happened…Baltimore blames its police.

 

[Deep_Roots]

Ha!

I see a big correlation.

Baltimore received $1.8 BILLION from President Obama’s stimulus package in 2009. Where did it go?

The people of your community (Baltimore) have been electing liberal democrats for the past 50 years and their dream has been **“kept at arms length.” ** When the explosion happened…Baltimore blames its police.

Many of us believe this issue is bigger than party. At our peaceful protests we’ve been calling out all the Democrats in office too.

 

[KendraDZ1902]

Excellent point Kendra.

Can you name other Hollywood productions that justify property damage? Or better yet any REAL LIFE incidents in which property damage and looting were justified??

I can see where breaking/damaging property in REAL LIFE could be justified. Use your brain.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

I can see where breaking/damaging property in REAL LIFE could be justified. Use your brain.

You are right, Kendra. I used my brain and thought about it. I remembered watching Face the Nation yesterday. There was a guy being interviewed who said “The rioters were totally justified. The looters are totally justified”…It’s all because of slavery. So over 200 businesses get damaged or destroyed

Do you agree with that?

 

[KendraDZ1902]

You are right, Kendra. I used my brain and thought about it. I remembered watching Face the Nation yesterday. There was a guy being interviewed who said “The rioters were totally justified. The looters are totally justified”…It’s all because of slavery. So over 200 businesses get damaged or destroyed

Do you agree with that?

Wow. I can see busting a window to sound an alarm, my first example which you got sassy about. I can see breaking down a fence to put out a fire. (The person who broke down the fence is responsible for damages to the fence, even if they saved the house) This fence scenario was a bar exam study question that my friend had, they DO have to pay for the damages. I still see it being justified, though.

I guess you can’t use your brain. You just like to fuss.

 

[pnewton]

"
Some of you have no idea what you’re talking about and have NEVER had contact with real poverty, violence, and the impact of decades of institutionalized racism, in your entire lives.

Listen to the people, don’t speak unless you know.

Victims of riots, vandalism and violence have every right to speak their opinion on the subject. Have you ever owned a store destroyed by rioters? If not, do you not think your opinion is still valid, despite not having this particular experience? Discussion is about accepting that many divergent opinions all have value.

 

[Selah_KY]

You are right, Kendra. I used my brain and thought about it. I remembered watching Face the Nation yesterday. There was a guy being interviewed who said “The rioters were totally justified. The looters are totally justified”…It’s all because of slavery. So over 200 businesses get damaged or destroyed

Do you agree with that?

Do you really believe that ONE sound bite from ONE person sums up the entirety of what’s happened?

Victims of riots, vandalism and violence have every right to speak their opinion on the subject. Have you ever owned a store destroyed by rioters? If not, do you not think your opinion is still valid, despite not having this particular experience? Discussion is about accepting that many divergent opinions all have value.

Except there is no discussion. Those on the one side continue to deny that there’s a problem, don’t accept that there is such a thing as white privilege (although, as time passes I see this more as upper middle class privilege), and continue to assume that this happened because these people are lazy, undisciplined, and entitled.

Look, here’s the deal. I live in Baltimore. I teach at Douglass (the school that has been on the news regarding all of this). My school and my kids are from the neighborhood this happened in.

Some of you have no idea what you’re talking about and have NEVER had contact with real poverty, violence, and the impact of decades of institutionalized racism, in your entire lives.

Thank you for sharing! I recognize that I only have a sliver of an idea what I’m talking about, but I’ve seen enough to know that I need to be a voice crying out and drawing attention to the fact that not all white, upper middle class people, believe the words of the loud minority on the right. (I grew up in a mixed-race working class suburb of Chicago. I know what I’ve experienced as a witness was only the tip of the iceberg!)

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Do you really believe that ONE sound bite from ONE person sums up the entirety of what’s happened?

Of course not.

That was just the first example of absurd excuses we will hear to justify the actions of violent people who wait for any incident to riot and loot.

 

[Deep_Roots]

Thank you for sharing! I recognize that I only have a sliver of an idea what I’m talking about, but I’ve seen enough to know that I need to be a voice crying out and drawing attention to the fact that not all white, upper middle class people, believe the words of the loud minority on the right. (I grew up in a mixed-race working class suburb of Chicago. I know what I’ve experienced as a witness was only the tip of the iceberg!)

excellent! every voice should be raised!

Unfortunately, as we often see, when voices from outside the affected communities speak up as an authority on issues like this…they often do more talking than listening. May we all try not to be that.

 

[pnewton]

Except there is no discussion. Those on the one side continue to deny that there’s a problem, don’t accept that there is such a thing as white privilege (although, as time passes I see this more as upper middle class privilege), and continue to assume that this happened because these people are lazy, undisciplined, and entitled.

I would have never said they were any of these things. I would rather say they were greedy and committed evil against innocent parties.

I do believe the evidence is compelling that just having darker skin puts one at greater risk. What I do not believe is that police are to blame. Morgan Freeman brought up a rather compelling study. I link it here:

policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfm?fuseaction=display_arch&article_id=1798&issue_id=5200

In summary, both the Chicago study and the Denver studies demonstrated that community members showed consistent evidence of bias. Although Denver police officers, like the community members, showed evidence of bias in terms of their reaction times, the similarities between their performance and that of community members ended there. Unlike the community (and unlike thousands of undergraduate students who have participated in this research since 2000), Denver officers showed no bias in their ultimate decisions. In other words, the presence of a counterstereotypic target (such as a black man with a cell phone) may have delayed a Denver officer’s response, but it did not cause the officer to make a mistake. Ultimately, officers’ decisions about whether or not to shoot were unaffected by the target’s race.

This is why police are reluctant to accept community oversight. While the reaction times do show a slight bias, police do a better job of actually making the right decision than the average man on the street. What everyone wants is perfect policing. That will not happen.

Specific to the Baltimore incident, I do not remember anywhere reading about how the injuries occurred or rather the actual initial injury was justified or not. The disregard for the man’s injury that did occur was wrong, but I do not believe for one second it was related to race, or that it was any flavor of murder. The far more likely culprit was simply incredulity. I believe charging these officers was short-sighted and will result in further unrest when they are acquitted.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Except there is no discussion. Those on the one side continue to deny that there’s a problem, don’t accept that there is such a thing as white privilege (although, as time passes I see this more as upper middle class privilege), and continue to assume that this happened because these people are lazy, undisciplined, and entitled.

Hmmmm…sounds like good old class envy to me.

 

[starshiptrooper]

Except there is no discussion. Those on the one side continue to deny that there’s a problem, don’t accept that there is such a thing as white privilege (although, as time passes I see this more as upper middle class privilege), and continue to assume that this happened because these people are lazy, undisciplined, and entitled.

I do not accept the validity of white privilege, but even if the concept had some validity, it vastly oversimplifies the situation and is rather offensive to Americans like myself of Polish heritage.

Poland never owned a colony overseas or enslaved blacks. Poland was invaded repeatedly by both Muslims and Europeans. It was completely occupied for over 100 years, and then was reoccupied by the radical leftist regimes in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.

When Poles came to America, they were considered inferior because of their Catholic faith and their genetics. Some people tried to prevent Catholic Poles from voting and many Polish families changed their names to hide their heritage.

Where is the white privilege in that?

 

[Selah_KY]

Where is the white privilege in that?

In the color of your skin. Duh.

 

[starshiptrooper]

In the color of your skin. Duh.

White privilege… being held personally responsible for your failures and not being allowed to use your skin color as an excuse.

 

[KendraDZ1902]

White privilege… being held personally responsible for your failures and not being allowed to use your skin color as an excuse.

I use my white skin as an excuse all the time. I’m a walking stereotypical southern sorority girl. I own it. And when people question me I just say either, “That’s the proper way.” or “I’m a white girl.”

White skin can be a total excuse, you just have to own it. And I can add that while I am super pale, I have Native American and Jewish ancestry, so don’t complain to me about slavery and being mistreated. My ancestors struggled too, a lot. :tsktsk:

Yay for being a mutt. No, don’t ever call me a mutt. I’ll be abusive.