#NMOS14: Vigils in Detroit among those to protest police brutality

[bananas]

Source: Detroit Free Press

Today at 7 p.m., from Hawaii to New York, hundreds of groups — including here in Detroit — plan to take to their communities in the U.S. in peaceful protest of what they describe as excessive police force.

It all began with the Twitter hashtag #NMOS14, which calls for a national moment of silence, coming days after unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed by police in Ferguson, Mo.

A moment of silence will be held tonight in Detroit’s Hart Plaza. A rally will also be held in Lansing at the state Capitol.

“It’s not just Ferguson. Police brutality is pervasive. It’s happening in so many cities,” New York-based social worker and community activist known online as Feminista Jones told the USA TODAY Network.

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Read more: http://www.freep.com/article/20140814/NEWS07/308140150/-NMOS14-vigils-Ferguson-Michael-Brown

[kardonb]

1. protesters

How about protesting the vandals , rioters , and looters ! There is NO justification for their actions , yet no one says boo about THIS unlawful behavior .

[haele]

2. Well, if you don't give them the cover to riot, loot and vandalize...

They won't have the opportunity to be out in the public "acting out".
Do you honestly think that the church and community leaders, the charitable and other community action organizations that are protesting to try and make their just causes and concerns are condoning or encouraging riots?

Or are you saying that people don't have a right to march in protest because it might "cause trouble"....?

If you don't make a violent push-back against groups of people using one of the few ways left to them to bring attention to injustice, corruption, or other forms of institutionalized neglect or abuse, then you won't have the flame that brings the lost, the young (and excitable)rioters, the agent provocateurs, and all the other chaos that allows criminals to hide behind people who have legitimate complaint and no recourse other than to take to the streets.

Okay - for those of you who didn't live through the Watts Riots, or Chicago 1967, here's a clue:

ESCALATION OR THE THREAT OF INCREASING DISPORTUNATE VIOLENT REACTION FROM WHAT SHOULD BE AN "AUTHORITY" IS WHAT CAUSES RIOTS.

People who are upset already DO NOT REACT WELL when they're told to shut up and sit down, their pain doesn't matter. They won't just go into a corner.

So yeah, protesting a corrupted, disengaged, hyper-militarized police force that views you as AN ANIMAL that should either be caged or on a leash is a legitimate complaint.

But protesting the looters that are the bastard stepchildren of that corrupt, disengaged, hyper-militarized authority symbols is unnecessary - by mitigating or remove the corruption and the swaggering, authoritarian "tude"of the police (along with the racism, classism, and sexism that such attitudes carry with them) will neutralize any threat of looters, vandals, or rioters.

Because those sorts of actions cannot occur without the chaos of pain and injustice that breed them.

Gods and Goddesses, I just had this discussion with my MIL who doesn't like to admit she's racist. As she sees it, it's all about the riots, and while "it was sad that the young man was shot, "those people" shouldn't have been burning down their own stuff - after all, you don't see that happen when a young white man is shot..."

Bit of levity here - she's never been around Soccer Hooligans.

Haele