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Comment by jchook | Hacker News Reader

MLK addresses looting.

> Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest. The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights.

Also, throughout its history, many US agencies astroturf “fake” riots to discredit their targets. The CIA did it in Iran in 1953 for example. Many LEO plants were identified in 2020, smashing glass, planting bricks, etc.

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Wow, that MLK quote cuts deep. It should also come with context as to what MLK was doing. He wasn't apologizing, rationalizing it, or supporting it. He was explaining why it happens. He continually called for non-violence and civil disobedience, not rioting. In many ways, he was calling to the black community to stop doing these things and up-level protests to effective means from ineffective means.

Sorry, from my perspective he's talking utter shite. I knew people in northern Ireland who rioted. They were young angry stupid men who didn't give a fuck who's lives they were making a misery. It was a form of collective punishment on people whose only crime was having a business or a car that idiots enjoyed smashing up

> people in northern Ireland who rioted

Yeah, these are not equivalent scenarios.

A divided population , a minority that sees itself as a victim of oppression, rioting and other violence. Yes, the people doing the rioting don't have similar excuses at all.

Edit infact in school I was taught Catholic civil right protestors drew inspiration from the black civil rights movement

> Edit infact in school I was taught Catholic civil right protestors drew inspiration from the black civil rights movement

Indeed, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/dr-king-s-impact-fight-c...

That sounds exactly like what MLK was describing:

"Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights."

It's about shocking society more than it is about the property and who it belongs to.

Amm, not in northern Ireland like the commenter says. That wasn't people out to just shock anyone. Same repression by the state, but differently aims.

When you say “it’s about”, it’s like you’re assuming rioters need to have a rational explanation for what they do. It could very well just be the unleashing of some inner raw-animal destructiveness for no reason other than the opportunity presented itself. Post-hoc rationalizations need not have any connection to the rioters themselves.

>> a form of collective punishment on people whose only crime was having a business or a car that idiots enjoyed smashing up

So people without property were punishing people who had property? Sounds very standard to me. Extend that a bit further and you get something like the French revolution where poor people executed rich people for the crime of simply being rich.

Correction: the crime of being rich while many starved.

I'm currently reading 'The Dawn of Everything,' and it is FASCINATING. The case made at the beginning of the book is that notions of equality and individual freedom basically came into being in Europe because of contact with indigenous Americans. Suddenly there was a flood of observations and conversations with societies that made sure no one went hungry.

And then when people started starving with the knowledge that another world was possible, things got violent. Incidentally, many-to-most violent uprisings have started with food shortages. Typically people have to be extremely uncomfortable before they start breaking out the guillotines, and hunger is extremely uncomfortable... And one of the still-active remnants of the French revolution is a government regulation ensuring that baguettes are cheap and readily available.

The recent violence in kazakhstan came after the possible rise in gas and electricity prices (which in turn is tied to crypo mining). The Terror started with food shortages but I think the next violent revolution will be triggered by energy prices, be it gas or electricity.

As for breaking out the guillotines, that doesn't take much. A gallows made an appearance on January 6th. Those people looked very well-fed. I'm not sure they were joking.

> The case made at the beginning of the book is that notions of equality and individual freedom basically came into being in Europe because of contact with indigenous Americans.

The biggest problem with that theory is that indigenous Americans generally did not hold notions of equality and individual freedom.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_among_the_indigenous_p...

2: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/service...

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroquois#War

It falls under the "noble savage" concept, the thought that native Americans were somehow innocents living in the garden as god once intended. The concept is far more telling of the European religious mindset than anything of actual native Americans.

I read a great book a few years back about the lives of African slaves owned by native Americans, native Americans who took said slaves with them when they were exiled by white settlers. The fact that I had not known of such things is a remnant of the noble savage concept. I was taught little in school about native american views on class.

The book talks a lot about this, and is worth reading.

Note that nothing you've pointed to is exclusive; Mayan society was very different from the societies of New France. Indigenous America is not a cartoon, but a large collection of societies with different organisation.

Another interesting point in the book is that there are many instances of enlightenment thinkers explicitly pointing to indigenous Americans as the source of their ideas... Which has tended to just be ignored or glossed over, in favor of the great man theory where these ideas spring from pure European genius.

There's a lot of ground between "these ideas spring from pure European genius" and "[these ideas] basically came into being in Europe because of contact with indigenous Americans." It would be much more interesting to acknowledge the specific ways in which contact with indigenous society contributed to the European Enlightenment than to dismiss Europeans' contribution entirely.

And describing indigenous people as "societies that made sure no one went hungry" without mentioning warfare, torture, and slavery does appear to be restating the classic myth of the noble savage. These practices were not limited to the Mayans, but were widespread across the Americas, including New France, as the additional links I added above describe.

Sounds like you'll enjoy the book (which is long) more than my comments (which are short). Getting into the specifics of how these ideas originated and travelled is exactly what it sets out to do.

Were the indigenous Americans the source of the ideas, or did the mere existence of indigenous Americans foster these ideas? The discovery of people, any people, outside the existing understanding of european/asian culture would bring forward new ideas. Were they the source, or were they simply the canvas onto which European thinkers painted stories?

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a classic example:

https://shanesafir.com/2020/12/before-maslows-hierarchy-the-...

The book makes the argument that the ideas originated especially from debates between Jesuits and the Wendat tribe, and was then over a hundred years or so internalized into the enlightenment debate.

I read your Canadian article. I don't see anything that contradicts the idea that indigenous Americans valued (or invented) individual freedom and equality. Unless you mean that they fought wars against other tribes.

that is a good take on it, i would also say happiness, if you see your parents and grandparents falling in love and starting a life together but you are pushing 40 with nothing to show for it because of unstable environment conditions, poor schooling and unfair labor wages which are all have to do with equality then people will look for a representation of their struggle.

the blm movement was not just about blm, a lot of it was used as a starter to talk about a related issue. which is equality in general, you can see this by how many socialist supporters came out. in reality mlk supported fair wages for all working class people and that is the “conspiracy” theory of why he got shot, but obviously if people can’t eat, or if they feel very they are being massively mistreated, they will riot.

If being rich were simply simple, wouldn't everyone have been rich?

> It was a form of collective punishment

Yes, and those people aren't allowed to do that, only approved governments.

are you really sorry?

Violence, or the threat of violence, against a civilian population with the intended aim of effecting political change is the actual definition of terrorism, special or not.

I think what you may be missing is that this paper juxtaposes "Just Riots" with "Just Wars."[0]

In modern warfare, massive numbers of civilians are often killed -- for example, the most deadly bomb attack of World War II was the Allied firebombing of Tokyo, which killed over 100,000 people, almost all of whom were civilians.[1]

Surely this is "violence, against a civilian population, with the intended aim of effecting political change". Indeed, harming morale was an explicit goal of attacks like those against Tokyo and Dresden during WWII.[2] The idea was that the population would be cowed by these attacks and (somehow) get their governments to surrender to the Allies.

So the question is: If we have a theory of "Just War," that includes wars where the "just" side can claim to morally kill tens of thousands of civilians at once, then should there also be a theory of "Just Riots," even if riots can scare civilians sometimes hurt or kill them?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_war_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Tokyo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_Wa...

There's a really big difference between civilian targets being collateral damage, and civilian targets being attacked intentionally. It's not like the rioters thought they were looting a police station but accidentally ended up in Target; they intentionally chose to loot Target.

The mass killing of civilians in Tokyo and Dresden was absolutely deliberate. Same with Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the atom bombs used in those attacks were dropped on the center of those cities, even though the factories we were ostensibly targeting were located on the outskirts.

Having said that: If indeed the Allies targeted civilians intentionally in World War II, would you say that the war was unjust? Or that the Allies committed war crimes? If not, then you might consider that there is such a thing as just riots.

This is why every definition of terrorism mentions non state actors, precisely because states use violence themselves.

Terror is historically the name of a form of draconic government. Your definition is prescriptive and the way I understand it you changed a perceived thread into an intended thread.

I'd argue that an act of desperation is rather aimless, frustation rather apolitical and anger not even well defined and well unintentional. You'd have to assume that a riot is concerted or agitated and that rioters were used, by a government against civilians. That's a real possibility, but it would also include kinda civil wars.

The current understanding as formed by extensive definitions does not capture mass hysteria though. It's simply terrible, a real riot.

> Often the Negro does not even want what he takes

Riiiiight. I guess that’s why it’s mostly big box consumer stores being looted and not, say, an industrial supply company like a Grainger or even a hardware store like Home Depot.

Reads a lot like a motivated rationalization of inexcusable criminality.

> Reads a lot like a motivated rationalization of inexcusable criminality.

To MLK ? Really ???

> Riiiiight. I guess that’s why it’s mostly big box consumer stores being looted and not, say, an industrial supply company like a Grainger or even a hardware store like Home Depot.

My guy I'm sure they're just going to their nearest / most frequented shops. If a Home Depot was in the neighborhood, I'm sure they would rob it.

> To MLK ? Really ???

I think that was meant to the quoter of MLK, MLK lived 50 years ago so he has no understanding of the events happening today. So it is the person bringing up the quote who stands by its validity for todays events.

> Riiiiight. I guess that’s why it’s mostly big box consumer stores being looted and not, say, an industrial supply company like a Grainger or even a hardware store like Home Depot.

In addition to the point made in a sibling comment, are you sure it is mostly big box stores? It seems just as reasonable to me that the big ticket items are what you hear about because someone stealing a bunch of 50c plumbing supplies just doesn't produce the same headlines. Certainly we've heard of things like 7/11s being hit, which frankly don't have as many "big ticket" items as Home Depot or Grainger.

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