Off the top of my head, we've had a record number of police misconduct prosecutions this year. The FCC weighed in against gouging prisoners for phone calls. This fight against debtor's prison issue is gaining traction.
#BlackLivesMatter and the riots that kicked it off have been extremely succesful so far.
I don't care what they want, what they think, or what their grievances are.
The injustice of the broken court system is more widespread than the hashtags would lead you to believe. You just get more benefit of the doubt if you look like the judge/persecutor, and it's easier to avoid serious harm if you have better-paid representation.
Right now my main question is not if I can placate rioters by giving them what they want.
Reforming OPD seems much more tractable than addressing issues over which local politics hold little to no sway.
The message that they wanted expressed is being effectively expressed at the cost of innocents just like they were innocent and abused.
And the riots have put me in an awkward position. I can say I don't support the rioters while still supporting and pushing for what the rioters want. However, if I do this, any successes can and will be treated as successes by the rioters. The predictable result will be more riots, because people will conclude that riots get them what they want. Alternately, I can refuse to advocate for policies called for by rioters, because under no circumstances do I want to encourage riots.
That's the bind I'm in. I'm erring on the side of personal safety, because I'm not real interested in having my face smashed in with a crowbar for the cause of today's riot.
If anything, the riots (along with the recent surge in violent crime) are going to end the nascent sentencing reform efforts that have been wending their way through Congress. We may have to wait another generation before we can try again.
Because of the history of radical politics in Oakland, and because the OPD is basically on federal probation, whenever there's cause for a protest quite a lot of people from outside the area converge on Oakland because it's relatively easy to run wild here and not get caught.
I live near the Children's hospital so when you saw that TV coverage of the police and would-be rioters trying to outflank each other to get access to Telegraph or the freeway ramp night after night, you also get a good look at my front yard. Be assured that I am as fully aware of the local impact as it is possible to be.
Fair enough?
EDIT: To clarify, I cared about what they wanted right up to this point.
The way it usually works is that you have people from a neighborhood protesting, fairly peacefully, about something they are upset with that occurred in their community, and then outsiders come in and turn it into a riot.
The people usually most harmed by the rioters are the poor people who live in the neighborhoods the rioters trashed. They are the ones who have to take long bus trips to go shopping because the stores they could walk to got destroyed. They are the ones who will be paying the higher prices when those stores re-open and need to pay off their debt from rebuilding.
Be careful as you judge the quality of the issues based upon what the news and local police call "riots" and "rioters". The media hasn't always been reliable or objective in applying those labels, and law enforcement officials have also been unable to resist editorializing or even telling outright lies. Police as well have been caught instigating disturbances and antagonizing protesters.
>Anything those people want and advocate now makes me think "Fuck you, more $$$ for da popo".
There are many more people who are opposed to injustice, and who deserve fair treatment than the group of opportunistic assholes who take advantage of these situations for criminal ends.
And I'm talking about things that happened two blocks from my apartment here. I saw the wreckage. It was several months before all the damage was repaired.
> There are many more people who are opposed to injustice, and who deserve fair treatment than the group of opportunistic assholes who take advantage of these situations for criminal ends.
Yes. There are. I feel empathy for them, because my desire to not give rioters propaganda fodder comes at their expense. Come up with a way for me to support fighting injustice that cannot and will not be turned around to argue that riots fix injustice, and I'll be there with bells on. Otherwise, I'm put in the position of being asked to encourage riots and measurably sacrifice my personal safety and well-being.
And that's... a difficult pitch.
One way to fix that is fair governance, or you know, work to stop injustice before anyone riots. One thing that's pretty clear now is that the government can treat groups of people pretty badly and for a long while before anyone will lift a finger.
>I'll be there with bells on.
No, sadly it was predictable that people would not tolerate endless systemic corruption and injustice, yet very few people were working to change it, or in most cases even aware of it before the "riots".
It sounds almost like you want obvious injustice to be allowed to continue just to spite the relatively small number of violent protesters; lest people might be encouraged to use violence to gain attention for their political ends. The answer to injustice is when it becomes apparent to end it, full stop. It doesn't require you to endorse rioting, either.
Why would I want to encourage this by taking actions entirely consistent with it?
You aren't asking me to endorse rioting. You are asking me to act in a way externally indistinguishable from rewarding rioting. That, I've found, is a thing easily rationalized from a distance.
Assuming for a moment that protesters == rioters
I hope you don't think that people who are desperate enough to riot for social justice would riot less if they didn't get it.
Is that a sufficiently clear statement of my position?
Perhaps I should say that I view riots as a form of injustice unto themselves. I am attempting to take action to stop injustice by demonstrating the scope and negative impact of injustice.
I think that unfortunately it may be correct.
>I think that in an environment where peaceful protest is perceived as without value and riots are perceived as efficacious, people will tend to make the rational choice.
I think that's a pretty obvious and logical path of escalation, but I still do not believe that most people would begin a protest with the intent that it become violent, nor that most people would rationalize the use of violence in that manner. If they are so rational, they surely would not choose the police or potentially the nat'l guard as opponents in a brawl.
>Perhaps I should say that I view riots as a form of injustice unto themselves.
Agreed.
>I am attempting to take action to stop injustice by demonstrating the scope and negative impact of injustice.
And demonstrating a marked lack of sympathy for others in doing so. You are not particularly concerned with injustice or violence as long as you remain personally unaffected.
Here is the study in question: http://www.omarwasow.com/Protests_on_Voting.pdf
Personally, I believe the meme to be a case of people choosing their beliefs for the purpose of emotional satisfaction rather than truth value.
> And demonstrating a marked lack of sympathy for others in doing so. You are not particularly concerned with injustice or violence as long as you remain personally unaffected.
Would you be more willing to listen if I had written a teeth-gnashing litany about how much I sympathize with the grievance(s) in question first? I suspect most would not. The prevailing thought is that in such a scenario as this, I should subordinate my grievances to those of others. You can see this on display when others tell me "get over yourself". In other words, I am to disregard one injustice in the supposed interests of addressing another injustice.
I am concerned with injustice and violence. I am also concerned with not perpetuating them in an effort to address them. I do not consider making the problem worse to be an acceptable manner of attempting to solve the problem.
I also wrote this:
> And the riots have put me in an awkward position. I can say I don't support the rioters while still supporting and pushing for what the rioters want. However, if I do this, any successes can and will be treated as successes by the rioters. The predictable result will be more riots, because people will conclude that riots get them what they want. Alternately, I can refuse to advocate for policies called for by rioters, because under no circumstances do I want to encourage riots.
> That's the bind I'm in. I'm erring on the side of personal safety, because I'm not real interested in having my face smashed in with a crowbar for the cause of today's riot.
Perhaps that's not considered sympathy. I should think it makes clear where my personal sympathies lie. Perhaps a more strident declaration of loyalty to The Cause is required?
That said, I'm also bothered by the idea that I have to express sympathy before being permitted to be displeased with an injustice. Can I criticize attempting to assassinate the POTUS without commenting on the cause of independence for Puerto Rice?
I'll bet you that black people in general in Ferguson, Mo. would tell you that they are better off now then they were before the protests. Since there was also rioting and looting and vandalism and violence, there are also probably people who believe that the rioting and looting and vandalism and violence are what's responsible for their improved status. It may well be that the rest of the country became more conservative after watching it; that would be a shame, and I'm still not convinced about that, either.
>I am to disregard one injustice in the supposed interests of addressing another injustice.
What injustice? You saw where some vandals in Oakland vandalized some stuff? We as a society mistreat a group of people until they take to the streets in protest, and when a few of them get too rowdy, people such as yourself get uptight about that (the protest, not the decades of injustice). Also, note the ease with which agents provocateurs can derail any social justice protest/movement merely because people such as yourself can't/won't distinguish between the two.
>Perhaps a more strident declaration of loyalty to The Cause is required?
That kind of wit might be why people tell you to get over yourself.
>That said, I'm also bothered by the idea that I have to express sympathy before being permitted to be displeased with an injustice. Can I criticize attempting to assassinate the POTUS without commenting on the cause of independence for Puerto Rice?
Probably not if you want to be taken seriously.
Oh, and the Puerto Rico thing actually happened.
In my view, your demand is unreasonable and un-achievable, on the face of it. Nobody can control what rhetoric or narrative emerges from events.
Protest is a necessary ingredient of society. There is always the risk that protest will turn violent, just as there is always the risk that a plane will crash. This is even if nobody condones violence or plane crashes, and we all extend our sympathy to the innocent victims.
Sounds pretty screwed up, doesn't it?
Also, as far as I can tell, most of the vandalism in Baltimore was initially directed at the government (not that it's an excuse). It got out of hand and unfortunately once the real jerks got involved turned into a spate of blacks vs everyone else racism/vandalism/violence/etc, but again it was a tiny fraction of the people involved in protesting. It's not even clear that the ones primarily responsible for the vandalism/violence were even involved in the protesting. What is clear though is that many of the protesters were among those harmed in the violence, and were also in the much larger groups of people who helped clean up the mess.
Look, I'm a Baltimore resident and I hated to see the rioting that occurred here back in the summer. I understand why it happened and what motivated it, but it didn't really move the ball forward for anyone that cared about fighting for justice. However, in the days and weeks leading up to the riots, there were large scale, peaceful protests in the city involving many, many more people then rioted. (A fact the national media paid virtually no attention to.) Most people out there don't think activism = violence or necessarily leads to violence. It's quite possible to make a distinction between rioting (and I think most of our Baltimore rioters were just using the situation as a pretext to rob and loot anyway) and activism.
Nary a peep was heard out of the mainstream media about this peaceful march.
Riots, on the other hand, seem to cause the media hordes to descend and at least draw attention to the cause. It's hard to argue the fact that they are at least useful for consciousness -raising.
It should be noted that studies of the subject show that riots tend to make voters in areas that hosted riots more conservative.
IMO: the riots start out as protests. Then a minority of people choose to cause mayhem. Another minority are criminals and they do what criminals do, which is act opportunistically. And yes, agents provocateur do exist.
But sure, I can understand why people who are directly affected would prefer to have no protests at all out of fear that a riot might happen. They love order more than justice, an attitude which, ironically, has helped to create the very same conditions that people are protesting.
I'm not opposed to peaceful protests. I've been in some myself. I am very much against riots and romanticizing riots as a form of productive protest. Agent provocateurs do exist, but I think it's unreasonable to pretend (as some do) that all riots are due to such.
You are certainly right about that.
I apologize for making a generalization, but whenever I see anyone of any political alignment suggesting that their issue of choice is being ignored/suppressed the mainstream media, the claim is almost invariably without merit.
Google News has a handy feature: when you search for a topic, under the first result is an option to explore in depth, and it shows you the number of additional articles you'll find on said topic. There may be more besides, but let's take this as a reasonable proxy of media interest.
Let's assume that, for any given an event, the height of news coverage occurs the day after the event.
The march was on Oct. 10th, so we would expect "peak news" to be on Oct. 11th. I adjusted your search to focus only on Oct. 11th, and Google News's Explore in depth showed me there were 1,076 more articles about the topic. It's true: not altogether absent.
To the Ferguson riots. Wikipedia pins the start date on 8/9/14, so let's take peak news date as 8/10/14. (However, given this was a multi-day narrative, we know that news coverage did not end after 8/10/14, but continued.)
How many Explore In Depth articles does Google News tell me were available for search term Ferguson riots on 8/10/14? 13,445.
The evidence is overwhelming: the media is far more interested in the riot narrative than in the peaceful march narrative.
Government overreach and police abuse are comparable to cancer. In both cases you have a part of a system that when functioning normally will maintain stability. But the local components become confused about their instructions and act in a way that is counterproductive to the health of the larger structure. The malady will spread and convert nearby healthy cells into cancerous cells. Because the culprits are normal parts of the body it is difficult to isolate the good from bad and the cures that are good at removing the bad cells have the side effect of damaging or disrupting good cells. But a temporary manageable pain is better than allowing a destructive impulse to destroy the body from the inside-out.