Last night there was major looting in Los Angeles. Rodeo Drive, Melrose, Fairfax, The Grove. Stores were looted and vandalized. Shops were set on fire. A synagogue was spray painted with anti-Semitic and pro PLO graffiti. Police cars were burned.
I saw a social media post circulating instigating people to hit the local mall. “Bring your own tools”. The police were aware of it. I haven’t been out so I don’t know if that mall was vandalized or not.
I lived through the 1992 riots. I remember fleeing to my home down a major boulevard seeing the shops being broken into and the rioters throwing things at cars. I made it home safely but kept a very long, sharp knife under my seat in the car when I drove again the first day I returned to work. I cheered the National Guardsman lining the streets that day. So this new rioting hits hard for me. I have zero tolerance for this. None.
I’m in a small Town that is half black and has had racial tensions in the past. Just a small smattering of demonstrations. The big demonstrations of the past resulted in worse quality of life for those who are poor and/or black here. I think that population is much worse today here than they were 50-75 years ago.
Damage to some lovely historic public buildings- they set a fire in the courthouse (it was put out quickly, I think) and some private businesses in the entertainment center of Nashville. I’m just sick about it all.
That brings back memories. My parents grew up in two different small towns with similar racial demographics to the one you mentioned. 65-70 years ago, nearly every African-American in those towns lived with limited electricity and no indoor plumbing.
70 years ago, African-Americans in those towns could not attend public schools past the 6th grade. My mother’s father raised funds and labor to build the first school in their city that would allow African-American’s to go to high school and graduate with a diploma. My father also was forced to attend a makeshift school so he could earn his high school diploma.
When my mother was pregnant with me, my father was a college professor in Georgia. My mother had to leave her husband when she was 6 months pregnant because no hospital there would deliver a baby from an African-American woman. My mother had to endure a 20-hour bus ride back to her hometown and live with her parents so that I could be delivered in a hospital.
50 years ago … well, I could go on, but I won’t belabor the point. I guess I’m trying to say I have a hard time comprehending how anyone could actually believe African-Americans’ lives were better off 50-75 years ago than they are today. Even with new incidents of police murdering African-Americans occurring every month somewhere in America, sadly, life 50-75 years ago was incredibly worse for African-Americans.
@cptofthehouse , you have a lot of helpful things to say about other subjects, and I think you are very smart and conscientious. . On this subject, you missed the mark.
There was a lot of damages down at Union Square and Barclay Center in Brooklyn.
It was disgusting and dangerous to burn those vehicles. We shouldn’t tolerate that kind of behavior. I wish the police did more.
I am listening the police chief’s speech on TV now. Good for him not letting his people be in the harms way and going to put anyone who participated in the riot in jail.
I feel bad for those retailers whose stores were vandalized when they were just getting ready for the re-opening.
50-75 years ago (1945-1970) was a time when the US had strong economic growth with the benefits widely distributed, and ample opportunity for upward mobility across all SES levels. However, particularly in the earlier parts of the period, such opportunities (as well as other things like voting rights) were much more limited for black people.
Of course, today’s economic environment feeds most of the benefits of economic growth the the top few percent on the SES scale, while the punishments of economic downturns are suffered mostly by those lower on the SES scale. For black people, political efforts to roll back voting rights and other civil rights gains add to the problems faced.
Anyone thinks having been cooped up som long fuel the intensity of anger? People were already frustrated before Floyd. I can’t believe it happened again after NYC case a few years back.
Plus, this. Which I’ve heard is happening in other cities as well.
“Albany Police Chief Eric Hawkins also said the city has gotten anecdotal comments from those at the riots that they did not recognize the people who were responsible for some of the violence. Police are investigating those comments.”
From the Governor our State Attorney General will start an investigation.
Personally, I see a huge difference between storming a Capitol building with arms because one has to wear a mask and can’t get a haircut, to protesting because people of color getting murdered because they are jogging while black, walking while black and driving while black - and many at the hands of police.
I’m not surprised in the least that riots have broken out in cities all over the country. What is going to happen next will make Kent State look quaint, imo.
Our country has big, big problems. We are a mess in every societal area, no matter the issue.
Oh, and this will definitely cause cases and deaths to rise from Covid-19 all over the country.
One group caused no property damage. Another did billions of dollars of damage. One group wanted people to get back to employment. The other did not care and the looting will cause more people to be unemployed.
So COVID cases will be re-introduced to the ‘congregate living facilities’ of the jails and will spread.
I love in a teeny semirural town. There is a “peaceful demonstration” scheduled for this afternoon in the neighboring small city. I hope it stays peaceful.
This makes me sick. The 60’s were bad enough with other protests turned riots since. I’m disgusted that our country hasn’t come further than this.
A friend of D and SIL lives within one block of the Oakland, CA. riots. The stores he was using for groceries etc. are looted. We’ve offered him a safer place to stay if things don’t calm down.
I didn’t mean SAH protest and police brutality protest were the same. At all. I meant that people could be getting angry easier with built up frustration due to the virus.
Why are the police doing stuff like this to members of the press?
May 31, 2020 at 12:10 p.m. EDT
“Vice News reporter Michael Anthony Adams shouted nearly a dozen times that he was a member of the media as police in Minneapolis poured out of a van on the street where he was covering the protests and yelled for people to leave.l
“I don’t care,” said one officer, who ordered Adams to the ground. So he lay facedown, showed his press badge and tried once more.
“I am press. Please do —” That’s when an officer hit Adams with pepper spray.
“The entire exchange, caught on camera, mirrored similar scenes that unfolded across the country through early Sunday morning: police spraying tear gas and rubber bullets at journalists who were covering demonstrations sparked by the death of George Floyd, who died in police custody last week.”
One positive outcome - our police chief announced that effective immediately officers were to discontinue use of choke holds. The paper published the details of the policy that has been discontinued, and it was… disturbing. Explicit instructions on how long a person in a chokehold could be held after they were unresponsive, etc. I’m glad for the sake of everybody that this practice is now prohibited.
Hopefully police departments everywhere use this as a chance to review and update policies, practices, attitudes.
This is a terrible situation. But you can guarantee that even if deaths from Covid-19 rise further then we are not going back to a lockdown. This will make governors open up further and faster, because you need to give people something else to do. Sports is a key part of this, even if it’s just televised with no spectators.
The online videos of police attacking journalists, children and bystanders may not be representative of the entire police force, but once you lose authority and respect, it is very difficult to regain it. So which mayor is now going to want to try and force people off the beaches or out of the parks and risk more riots? Look at LA making the sudden decision to open restaurants yesterday to try and avoid another flashpoint.
Nothing says let’s have the necessary and crucial conversation around racial injustice like grab the Gucci bags, burning police outposts, shootings, shopping carts with “gameboys” and free vacuum cleaners.
Cops have a tough job. Killed in action and critically injured each year in the hundreds.
Poverty and lack of opportunity leads to crime in many urban areas.
When these opposing forces meet too regularly there is going to be a problem.
Racism among the bad apples in the police force need to be removed root and branch. Issues like the Mr. George’s murder need to be treated like any other capital crime.
We don’t attack every husband following the murder of a spouse. We don’t condemn every man following a sexual assault. Or teacher or priest following a sex abuse case.
We don’t burn schools and churches. It’s not an opportunity to loot the churches and schools or burn them to the ground.
What does a retail store have to do with police injustice along racial lines.
This isn’t a police issue. This is a some police are bad issue.
It’s worth talking about and looking at the bigger issues. Like poverty and lack of economic opportunities in many cities.
This antifa nonsense needs to be stopped. They are only ruining the opportunity for dialogue and physically hurting the communities that can afford it the least.
The peaceful marchers and protesters should be allowed to congregate somewhere safely.
