Another insight about rioting/looting - PLEASE READ
Last edited Sat May 30, 2020, 07:59 AM - Edit history (2)
No one's asking you to condone what's happening. It's a tragedy on so many levels. But many of you don't seem to understand the mindset behind some of what's going on when looting occurs -- or maybe you simply refuse to because trying to put yourself in that situation is too uncomfortable.
“The rioters are criminals and they don’t even care about police brutality stuff.”
There are criminals among us in every group, whether peaceful or violent, but the reasons riots break out are varied and complicated. Look at the pictures of Minneapolis before anyone ever threw a rock or started a fire or stole anything — the police firing rubber bullets and cans of tear gas into crowds of people who WERE peacefully protesting. What do you do when you’re frustrated and upset and no one is listening to you? Better yet, what do you do when they’re not only refusing to listen but actively trying to cause you physical harm to shut you up? Do you go home, stand there peacefully, or get mad and try to hurt them back? Does it really matter who you hurt at that point? Would you try to hurt someone in full tactical gear holding a weapon or would you try to hurt something like a multi-billion dollar business with insurance that probably contributed to the decimation of Mom & Pops in your community? Do you want to actually DIE in that moment or are you just upset and frustrated and at your breaking point and you want to smash something?
“Being frustrated is no reason to be violent.”
Everybody reacts to stress differently. I have no desire to riot. That’s not how my frustration at the world takes root. It doesn’t manifest itself as a roiling mass of energy that needs to be released, but I can understand how it could in others. Look at the situation.
— We’re in the middle of a global pandemic and many of the people on the front lines (making sure YOU can be comfortable at home) are Black people risking their lives for minimum wage, dealing with entitled white folks every single day.
— The virus itself is affecting Black people to a higher degree because we’re denied access to health services and we’re forced to WORK during it.
— Even in the middle of a pandemic when most of the country sat at home for weeks, civilians being murdered by police did not see a downward turn AT ALL. We’re on track for the same number of deaths we saw last year.
— All week, every day, a new video of Racism in America. From white women using the police as their personal security service to elderly women being tackled by cops with guns drawn to another Black man who can’t breathe, murdered by a cop who should’ve been fired a long time ago.
How do you feel about your country when people who look like you have to work through a pandemic, are dying in larger numbers from the disease, have the police called on them over a dog leash, are told they’re trespassing on property they pay rent for, are brutalized by armies of cops, and are killed in broad daylight for the crime of jogging?
How do you feel? How would you react? Regardless of how you would react, how can you tell someone else how they should? People are ANGRY. They have a right to be angry. And I can’t tell someone else how their anger should manifest. Because they are grown and TARGET HAS INSURANCE! I promise you Target will be just fine!
- Rafi D'Angelo
EDIT TO ADD his site: https://soletstalkabout.com/2020/05/28/how-to-respond-to-riots-never-solve-anything/
ETA #2: I can't recall where I read it, but another insight into the frustration and rage that feeds actions of looting and other destruction IN THESE JUSTIFIED PROTESTS AGAINST STATE-SPONSORED MURDER, is that obviously Black people are most impacted and have been FOREVER economically, educationally, health-wise, etc. Redlining still happens. The income is less, mortality rates higher -- all the statistics are stacked AGAINST the Black community.
So when the rage of being unheard about the valid fear they feel every single day living in White America, fuck yeah some of them think, I'm gonna loot and get shit I need -- or maybe shit I don't need, just for the hell of TAKING SOMETHING since SO MUCH HAS BEEN TAKEN FROM US. Plus, these stores have insurance. And this shit isn't about $$$$. Looting is symbolic, and a lot of times people aren't even consciously aware in the moment of all this. It becomes irrational in the throes of frustration, rage and fear.
= new reply since forum marked as read
but know words are useless. We white people can never, ever get it, no matter how empathetic we think we are.
I'm bearing witness to your post, and trying to do a lot more than that - beyond typing/saying words and voting -- to change this fucking obscene, evil system of white supremacy.
until they do something that confirms the bias of the white supremacists.
Thank you for this post.
Thank YOU for introducing me to the site. I've been reading it since i posted... it's bookmarked now.
Cheers!
Thanks for posting! I have shared the link on FB! 
Took me a minute to decypher "Saltine Americans", pfffft. 
K to the R
