Hey, Charlie Manson is in prison right now for ordering others to murder people, I see no reason why this guy shouldn't be behind bars for ordering the lynch mob to burn the town. Arson isn't as severe a crime as murder, so it shouldn't be as severe a punishment, but I think he should be punished.
I don't see it this way at all. I've seen some pretty stupid arguments about the Ferguson demonstrations. The wider meta-story looks to me like this: black people say 'Hey, our lives matter too!' and then a whole lot of white people say 'STFU, we don't want to hear about your imaginary problems!' I don't think anyone needs to inject race into the subject when the subject is black discontent at mistreatment by government entities dominated by whites -- race is already the subject. Is rioting itself stupid? Perhaps; I certainly think its counterproductive here. But, it also seems to be largely out of frustration of not being heard. I don't that'll happen. If people don't want to agree, they'll find a way to discredit the example in their minds one way or other. Perhaps its a weakness in protests that they rally around specific examples of injustice in the first place because actual examples are too nuanced and complicated.
By picking such a ridiculous case to champion, they embarrass themselves. Maybe they are saying "Hey, our lives matter too!", but 1. No one said they didn't, so they are arguing with a straw man 2. They are protesting because of an idiot that knocked over a convenience store then attacked a cop....not exactly legitimate cause to protest. They furthermore embarrass themselves with the "hands up, don't shoot" nonsense that didn't actually happen. It's always best to not make yourself look like an ignorant fool if you are hoping to be taken seriously.
Will never happen. The government would rather pump drugs and guns into the poor communities instead of educating them. They're the crop for the money making prison system in this country. Bush Sr started this process when Ronald Reagan was president. Notice how this country will send our soldiers way overseas jumping into other people's business but won't go across the border to deal with the cartels. Everything is going as planned. Different era... People have more avenues to get their point across in today's modern world regardless of whatever injustice they may face...
Some people will find a way to discredit it, but not everyone and not even a majority. People change, the public changes.... almost every other major riot/protest was not widely popular at first. The fact that Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown are the poster children for the discontent is a problem. Most Americans can easily dismiss the concerns or discontent of the crowds.
They trashed their own economy, reputation and tons of jobs. We know the store that was robbed, looted, and trashed was minority owned. I know you don't have any stats on how many other were minority owned.
They don't care. How many of the protesters own small businesses? How many of the protesters care about their reputation outside of their family and friends? How many of the protesters had jobs, or lost jobs as a result? A big part of the problem is that many of those looting do not feel like they are part of or have any stake in what happens in this country. Poverty is pervasive. You have many people born into single parent households that are reliant on either government assistance or low paying jobs. They feel they have nothing to lose, and do not have the prosperity that other groups have.... it is almost inevitable.
For the record, Bobby was generally against MLK, Gandhi, Mandela, and the civil rights movement but he supports the mass genocide of innocent civilians if there's a good reason for it. Nice job Bobby. There's nothing funnier than Bobby droning on and on about intelligence, ignorance, and how it's not about race when most every measurable that indicates what's going on in society shows rather strongly that race is not only a factor but it's highly determinant of the life you're going to experience in this country. That's nobody's opinion, that's what the data shows. It's rather easy to see, except for you Bobby (obviously), that this shooting was more a flash point for these protests rather than the cause in and of itself. These protests are fed by decades of disenfranchisement, systemic inequality, and police brutality. The inability to grasp this fact and choosing to focus simply on the shooting itself as an indication that there isn't a problem illustrates how completely the **** out of touch some of you are with what's going on in minority communities. Bobby, how much stupid can you seriously post on this board on any given day? Seriously.
ITT: reasons for destructive riots changed after the fact when real reason is shown to be incredibly dumb
I keep waiting for the day where you'll finally improve your reading comprehension skills to the point that you will be able to add something constructive to these boards. Sadly, it appears that day is not today. Keep trying though, you may never succeed, but you'll provide comic relief until you do. Honestly I'd block you if it wasn't so much fun laughing at your so far futile efforts.
That's false because you didn't hear jack from the majority when people like John Crawford got gunned down. People like Martin and Brown get the attention because the majority can justify them being gunned down but the majority are as quite as a church mouse when it comes to the many like Crawford. I bet if a thread was started on Crawford it would be no more than a few pages long. Are you sure those tons of jobs hire tons of black people...??? Most black owned businesses in communities like that are barber and beauty shops, and maybe a car detail shop and a seasonal tax office. But Nook pretty much answered your question.
I can't disagree that society changes. But, that's a long process, and I'm not sure which direction we're headed in. Maybe my grandchildren can grow up in a place with more racial justice (which I suppose is not as far away as it sounds, given the ages of my kids). I'm thinking right now in the Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown and similar events. Finding the right person and mix of circumstances to shake people and say 'look at this injustice, we must fix things' -- that won't happen. I think Michael Brown is a bad rally point, but Trayvon Martin is as good a case as you'll ever get and mainstream white America still dismiss it. The response white America should be having (since I'm identifying with white America) is 'the Ferguson protests shows us we still have relationships to repair with minority communities.' Instead, it's 'Turns out that guy was a thug; come back when you've got something good.' We shouldn't need some grand example of the perfect injustice. One grand injustice was never the problem anyway, but an accumulation of a million small injustices. Focusing on a Michael Brown is like arguing from anecdote. We should have the conversation on data instead.
Trayvon case had so much more credibility than this case, it is not even close. DA could have possibly gotten a man slaughter in the Trayvon case, this case there is zero chance the DA could have gotten anything other than looking stupid if he brings charges.
you were the one making statements that no black owned businesses were robbed or burned. I don't know why you would assume no black people worked at or owned walgreens or a beauty supply or one of the dozen buildings burned.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Police are investigating if Michael Brown's stepfather intended to incite a riot in <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Ferguson?src=hash">#Ferguson</a>: <a href="http://t.co/lSrBOMNDgt">http://t.co/lSrBOMNDgt</a> <a href="http://t.co/tHOhqmzdov">pic.twitter.com/tHOhqmzdov</a></p>— CNN (@CNN) <a href="https://twitter.com/CNN/status/539864112134516737">December 2, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Well, this is quite interesting, I never thought that the government is doing the job like this, but I think you are quite right, that is why a rich country like USA has so many violence problems.
The only thing those two events had in common was that they were cases where black men attacked other men with guns and got shot for it. Those are terrible examples if you want to show a flawed legal system. When people focus on situations where there is no injustice while crying out about injustice, it just makes them look stupid and it kills their case. If they are THAT poor at determining what injustice looks like, why should anyone believe them when they say that actual injustice takes place? If those groups who want to protest were smarter about the cases they protest about then they might be seen as being more credible, but when they take up the Trayvon Martin and Micheal Brown cases, they only destroy that credibility. An example of this is if I went to my landlord complaining that my house had roaches while holding up a bubble gum wrapper and calling it a roach....how seriously do you think they would take me?
Actually, the relevant thing those two have in common is that there was a loud outcry about perceived injustice from the black community as a result. There were others like that before and will be more later. But the reaction of the country seems to be what you've done in this post in miniature -- find a way to dismiss the complaint in your own mind with something akin to a procedural move so you don't have to answer the underlying questions. So forget Trayvon and Michael Brown. Do you believe we have a race relations problem, especially around issues of community policing? If you do, the particulars of those two don't matter because we have a larger problem in the relationship between police and minority communities that should be addressed. If you don't believe we have a race problem around policing, don't stop at dismissing Martin and Brown as 'bad examples.' Explain what you think is really happening in our society that has everybody so wound up. So far, I gather you think all the people who percieve a problem are stupid and like to riot for fun. That's not the full argument, is it?
