Posted on 08/31/2014 12:49:00 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Listen to the experts. Challenge yourself to understand that looting isn’t bad, and shouldn’t be viewed as a violation of the rights of an innocent person or persons or a frontal assault on the essence of civilization itself.
No, looting and rioting are important human expressions for change that should be protected and celebrated. And perhaps subsidized via a pilot federal program.
Sadly, as Yamiche Alcindor reports for USA Today. “When protesters burned down a convenience store near where a police officer fatally shot Michael Brown, many condemned it.”
Oh, dear, how small-minded of them.
Thankfully, “experts say the ensuing images on national television could become as much of a catalyst for social change as peaceful protests.”
University of Missouri-St. Louis history professor Priscilla Dowden-White acknowledges that it is a “challenge to see these primarily young males and females rioting and looting as part of protest, but it is.”
“You are talking about people who are living at or below the poverty line. You are talking about people who are the products of failing schools,” she explains, “and so I look at the looting as part of survival.”
Still, one wonders just how sustainable looting might be for the people of Ferguson, Missouri. Or anywhere else.
“The looters, the robbers, the chanters, the nonviolent protests, the sign-making … all of it has value because it wouldn't be international if it wasn't for the looters,” argues Amari Sneferu, a leader of the Universal African Peoples Organization who lives in nearby St. Louis.
Sneferu was reportedly “proud” of young people for what the newspaper described as “taking matters into their own hands and not conforming to past nonviolent tactics,” saying of one young man who stole a single hubcap, “He just wanted to do something. That was his expression of outrage because a murderer is getting away with it."
Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, who graduated from a St. Louis high school and now hails from California where he’s a scholar in residence at Stanford University, returned to protest in Ferguson. He also supported the violence, declaring that “America created this. So folks took some tennis shoes, some big TVs that ended up on the black market — whatever.”
The owners of and workers at stores selling “whatever” were apparently and unfortunately unavailable for comment.
Duke University’s Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African and African-American studies (sporting an impressive three first names), notes that the nonviolent strategy of the civil rights movement of the 1960s may have been appropriate then, but not necessarily today.
It is the very educated opinion of University of Texas Professor Keisha Bentley-Edwards that the goals of looters and peaceful protesters were the same. She complained that “people romanticize the 1960’s. … But people forget Martin Luther King was arrested several times."
Of course, Dr. King’s arrests were not for looting or any acts of violence whatsoever, which might be seen by some less sophisticated observers as a slight distinction.
Let’s not be naïve, however. Violence can indeed make headlines, and headlines can spark needed conversations and actions that can lead to positive changes.
No doubt, Martin Luther King’s non-violent civil disobedience was made even more compelling and effective because it could be juxtaposed to Malcolm X’s call for change “by any means necessary.” Yet, make no mistake it was the tactics of non-violence that shamed so many whites and ultimately broke the resistance to integration and equal rights in reality as well as law.
I support change, even revolutions — with the stipulation that those revolutions must be about a respect for rights, and the innocent, not an abrogation of rights and open season on innocents.
Last week I called for action to prevent police brutality and repair the relationship between police and the people they serve, pointing to two straightforward reforms: (1) ending the War on Drugs, which has oppressed and decimated black communities, and (2) mandating that Ferguson police wear the cameras they already possess to protect both themselves and the public (as should cops everywhere).
Too many of those earning a nice salary studying and bloviating on the topic of race find looting to be uplifting and life-affirming behavior to be championed. Those concerned about reform and protecting their communities see things differently.
There were two known instances of protesters in Ferguson blocking looters from breaking into stores. Christopher Scott, a 24-year-old from Northwoods, Missouri, sat guard at a business stopping a crowd of would-be looters. “It’s not right for us to tear down our own community.”
Mauricelm-Lei Millere, an advisor to the New Black Panther Party from Washington, D.C., did likewise at another store.
“I protected it because I’m not a thief,” he said.
How delightfully uneducated.
How about receipt free pick ups?
That sounds like the government.
Honest to God, I’ve been hearing this crap for the last fifty years. It never changes. No matter what legislation is passed giving blacks special benefits or how many programs Congress passes to “help” poor (and predictably “oppressed”) blacks, according to the majority of blacks, this is still a horrible, racist country dominated by a white power structure (institutional racism) that keeps blacks down. Yes, that’s all every white American thinks about is how they can oppress black people. I’m sick of it and at the end of my rope.
Riots are a great catalyst: for the middle class to move to the safer Republican areas. Something akin to riots caused the first humans to flee Africa towards the colder north. This process has been repeating ever since. Canada is an entire country of people willing to tolerate freezing weather in exchange for civil neighbors.
“You are talking about people who are living at or below the poverty line. You are talking about people who are the products of failing schools,” she explains, “and so I look at the looting as part of survival.”
All part of the plan baby! All part of YOU and your MASTER’S plan that is.
When black school age children are told by their peers that to do well in school is ‘Acting White’ then all of this stuff you and I are witnessing is not Whitey’s Fault. It’s YOUR fault. So man, or woman in your case, UP! and take responsibility for you and your people’s actions. As for me... I’m over it. Go live in your little ‘dream’, I’m tired of paying for it.
Looting (aka: rightful redistribution) makes jobs as workers have to produce more stuff to put on the shelves. To think otherwise is obviously racist and elitist. To paraphrase the Las Vegas signer, celine dion, “let them touch it...they never have touched it”.
This is nothing compared to whats coming when Wilson walks.
The “protestors”, egged on by race hucksters, are now going to attempt to shut the highways down tomorrow at 4:30 pm for 4 minutes 30 seconds in rememberance of how long MB laid in the street (you know, during a homicide investigation).
I support the right to protest peacefully but deliberately stopping your vehicles in the middle of busy highways on a holiday is pure effing madness and will get people hurt.
I'm old enough to remember the reporting by the MSM employees during the 60's rioting.
In the inner-city ghettos it's not looting. It's the layaway plan so common back then before credit cards became dominate. However layaway is still common today for some because of -- what else? -- racist credit card companies.
The inner-city ghetto merchants (almost all white racists back then) charged (and still do charge) exorbitant prices.
The extra amounts are in reality payments on any and all merchandise in the store; to wit, layaway payments.
The items fully paid for, more than in full, over the period of thousands of years belong to the victims of white racist oppression -- even if the merchants are no longer mostly white.
I hope this clears it up.
(Just in case /s)
searching for race-grievance industry
the search engine found
Heritage Foundation article from Jun 24, 1998 -
"The poverty industry has joined forces with the race-grievance industry, and together they suppress reform that could have the power to uplift those low-income ..."
.. and going way back
“There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs-partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. ~ Booker T. Washington (1856-1915.) ~ Educator, Author, Civil Rights Leader
Actually, it's far worse than that. They are zombies, the living dead, and their monetary poverty is just a symptom, an outward manifestation of the spiritual poverty and death within.
None the less, dead though they may be, they are quite rich in spirit and self esteem and oblivious to their own lifeless forms and to their own deaths long ago, at least on a conscious level.
And nothing changes until they change their inner dialog and the reactions they have to what they encounter hour by hour, day to day. "Change your mind; change your life." There is nothing physically wrong, it's their software that's been corrupted.
The best thing is to do a re-boot with a repair disc and reset back to the original good. But how?
First, one must ask: Who wrote the code? Who is the original Programmer? If His code is running the hardware, the hardware is not a looter or a rioter nor an oppressor or abuser.
If any other code is running the hardware, it's probably a beta program and all bets are off. Much of that is malware and should be avoided.
Now that would send a powerful "international" message.
I grew up poor, too. When one of my brothers stole a candy bar from a store, our mother marched him right back to the store to confess and apologize. We never had an excuse to steal, no matter how poor we were.
Law-abiding Americans are getting more and more tired of this crap! We’re sick of all the excuses. Race and/or poverty are not licenses to steal.
LOL!
Today’s favorite quote..
“By the time I got to Ferguson, all the good stuff was gone...”
Eric Holder
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