A friend sent this to me and it reverberates.

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

I don't riot but I understand.

It’s hard to believe an officer would fire 12 shots at Mike Brown if he weren’t Black. Black life is definitely deemed cheaper. The Cops who killed Mike Brown, shot the 12 yr old black kid in Cleveland who had a toy gun, choked Eric Garner in Staten Island, have been conditioned by society and media not to value black life.

A White friend said in reference to the black kid who got killed in Cleveland this weekend, “Black parents should know better than anyone not to give their kid a BB gun”. My response was, Black parents shouldn’t have to worry about anything White parents don’t have to worry about.

She asked if Mike Brown stole from that connivence store? I said, “I don’t know but if he did it’s not punishable by death. This isn’t the 1700’s”.

I work with white people and I love them. I have amazing friends of different ethnicities. I don’t think they know that most black people walk around everyday pretending life is fair. We are great pretenders. This is just one of the few times some have decided not to. That’s why I understand.

The truth is you have to be really unhappy to riot. Happy people don’t riot. If you live in a good neighborhood, with quality schools, stores, and fair law enforcement you won’t burn it down. Rioters don’t give a fuck about the neighborhoods they live in that’s why they burn them. Most rioters are forced to live in shitty towns by unfair economic practices. Slave masters use to give their slaves the parts of a pig they didn’t want to eat; it’s the same way with minority housing. That’s why I understand.

The same people who celebrate the Boston Tea Party, say people shouldn’t riot, it makes them look like animals. Kudos to rioters who are not afraid of being called names by a bunch of hypocrites. When we don’t riot, unarmed kids get shot by cops, we get treated like animals and called nigga anyways. That's why I understand.

Black people don’t riot at the drop of a dime. We only do it after every two hundredth innocent black person is unjustly killed. It takes a lot for the lid to blow off the pot. It’s also a game. Some people have to riot, so that when our representatives hold talks, the powers that be know we’re serious and are willing to risk our lives for liberty. That's why I understand.

The other day I had the flu. It got worse everyday. I threw up, coughed, blew my snot filled nose till it was sore, and sweat in my sleep. I had to get worse before I got better. Now I’m stronger than ever before. Right now this country has the flu. God bless the rioters who are giving their lives for the correction process. I don’t riot but I understand.

[daleanime]

1. Any time some one says 'they shouldn't riot', I simply say.....

"His body was left in the street for hours."



Seems to shut them up.

[BlueCaliDem]

2. *Mic drop*.

Exactly, daleanime.

[UglyGreed]

3. +1000 N/T

[Scuba]

5. + another

[madashelltoo]

8. Four damned hours!

But, no pictures or measurements were taken because they ran out of fucking film. I guess they ran out of tape measure too. I thoroughly understand.

[Mopar151]

19. No Ambulance

No Medical Examiner

No Coroner

One of the neighbors brought a sheet....

No Shift Commander

No State Cops

No Crime Scene Van

5 F'n Hours.....

2 guys, may have been cops, show up in a black SUV, haul the body away.

So much fail......

[clydefrand]

4. If you are white

and you don't understand the message, then you are most likely a racist. If you understand the message, but laughed at it, then you most likely a racist.
I'm 79 YO white male, and I sure understand the message, and I sure didn't laugh at it.
I grew up in the south, and I still never understood why whites didn't like blacks. It never made sense to me.

[Dustlawyer]

10. Fear, lack of real understanding of Black culture, "they are different from us," lack of

understanding of institutionalized poverty, and true ignorance of white privilege.

[Elmer S. E. Dump]

22. And much fear

Fear that facing these truths is too much for them, so they hold on to what they've always believed. It's scary to think you've been wrong in such a hurtful way for your entire life.

Then again, most are probably just assholes that want to preserve their white privilege. I call them "racists".

[Odin2005]

34. A-fucking-men, old-timer!

[ashling]

6. Violence from above

This was posted in the group It's not easy leaning left in Mississippi

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. "As long as violence from below is condemned while violence from above is ignored...."

Not just applicable to black/white issues, either.

[ashling]

11. The grapes of wrath

“And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.”
-John Steinbeck

[duhneece]

12. ...So long as violence from below is condemned

while violence from above is ignored, you can bet that the former will continue....If you'd like the former to cease, put an end to the latter..."

and, from a post above, about letting Michael Brown's body lay in the street for hours

I am memorizing as my response to anyone who can't understand and says so to me.

Thank you, thank you.

[BrotherIvan]

30. Excellent post

Damn right.

[Odin2005]

33. I'm stealing this!

[mainstreetonce]

9. Great Post

[DesertDiamond]

13. This is so well said I am bookmarking it for later. And it's true what you say, happy people don't

riot, and my black friends do tend to pretend everything's okay. Only a very few will talk to me about what's really going on in their lives, what it's like to be black in this country. White people need to have some of these conversations with black people so that their eyes can be opened. Now, when I meet black people who clearly don't like me because I'm white -- mostly it's just giving me the cold shoulder when I try to be friendly -- I just think, "No worries. I get you. Go ahead and express it, cold shoulder, tell me off, whatever." And if someone is rioting (assuming it was really the protestors and not agitators sent in by the opposition) well, yes, they're angry. Take a moment to think about why.

There are those who think they can just oppress others and the oppressed will just lie down and take it. That does not work! It leads to things like violent protests. Suicide bombers. When we attack a country that has an army and military machines equal to ours, do they resort to suicide bombing? No, they don't. Those who do so only do so because they have no other way to fight back. But of course, we can't see that distinction because we only attack countries that can't fight back. It's the same for those who become violent as a form of protest. It's all they have.

As you say, iwillalwayswonderwhy, I don't riot, but I understand.

[LittleGirl]

14. Thank you for posting

that was brilliant.

[99Forever]

15. We will have actually become a "post racial" society, when...

...ALL of my fellow white people can understand what it is you have said here, take it to heart, and make the changes to makes no human being ever have to feel that way again.

Bravo.



"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

16. This whole thread makes me very emotional

Thank you all for giving it a good ponder.

[Cha]

17. Mahalo, iwillalwayswonderwhy.. compelling! :(

[bvf]

18. Great post.

I grew up less than a mile from the Cudell rec center. Some of the local media coverage about Tamir Rice's murder has been pretty disgusting. That can only exacerbate the problem.

[WillyT]

20. HUGE K & R !!! - Thank You !!!

[Loki]

21. I do understand, it's personal for me.

My cousin was murdered by a police officer in New Mexico. She was 32 years old and was shot in front of her children. She was adopted by my aunt and uncle when they were stationed in Laos. She looked Hispanic/Native American. The officer was never charged. If her skin was as white as mine, Kate would be alive today.

"It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard." Martin Luther King, Jr.

[Dont call me Shirley]

25. I'm so sorry. Such a tragedy that should not have happened.

NM police have really become out of control. It's their "Shoot First" training, their lack of conscience, their disconnect from their neighbors.

[Odin2005]

35. !!!

[lexington filly]

23. Having come of age during the 60's,

I understood even at the time it took Martin Luther King plus Malcolm X plus the Black Panthers plus a leader like President Johnson to create the Civil Rights laws. The only reason my small white KY high school became integrated in 64 was because the Black school was burned to the ground. After those initial changes and new beginnings, in the years since, people have underhandedly reversed the gains and intent of equality across the board in practice and not just in theory. So, yeah--I get it.

[Dont call me Shirley]

24. Rioting is a symptom of collective PTSD

[Kennah]

26. Sometimes people riot because their sports team lost, or won

However, in Ferguson and other cities around the U.S., people are rioting because they have been pushed beyond their breaking point.

[Overseas]

27. K&R.

[Lex]

28. This line "Black parents shouldn’t have to worry about anything White parents don't

have to worry about." That is so deeply true and I see with my own eyes that this is so far from reality right now.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

29. "We only do it (riot) after every two hundredth innocent black person is unjustly killed"

And ONLY when the system says it was justice.

[TxDemChem]

31. +1

It gets exhausting putting on a facade that things are just and equal. As a child, any time I would say that life isn't fair, my dad would remind me that the fair comes only once a year, so don't expect fairness most of the time.

[Odin2005]

32. K&R

[tblue37]

36. KnR. nt