Add to what you have said the fact that our own government has put people out of work and into a state of being "the working poor". The black man suffered in a good economy, life has gotten worse.
There is indeed a pent up anger over murder, brutality and being disenfranchised.
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^^^I wonder how many people would recognize themselves if they watched this? I think it would be depressing to get an actual answer...so I probably don't really want to know that NONE OF THEM would "get it" :frown:
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I thought this was a thread about Baltimore...
I was going to head that way May 6th as soon as my last final final exam is over to seek out new customers. It was going to be my 1st stop. Yesterday I had decided I wasn't going to Baltimore. Today I changed my mind.
What happened? The riot was Monday. Police and National Guard turned out in force Tuesday to prevent more damage. Then last night the first of the real resident of Baltimore were comfortable speaking up. None of them are yelling racism. None of them are screaming police brutality. They were and still are more concerned about taking their city back from the rioters. Tonight they did that. Black residents of Baltimore turned out in bigger numbers than police to form lines blocking rioters chanting "GO HOME!" Not only that they were busy Tuesday volunteering to help clean up and help the damaged businesses save what they could.
This was not Ferguson II.
Tonight amateur video of Freddie Gray getting into the police van under his own power, looking uninjured has made it to the news channels. This undermines all the theories that police beat him before he was put in the van.
Then one of the suspended policemen has reached out to the press through a friend telling the news channels to ask for the GPS recordings on the van to see they ddi not drive fast, make abrupt stops or do anything to give Freddie Gray a "rough ride" to punish him. The two officers escorting him to the van weren't handling him rough in any way.
And then the arrested man who was in the van with Freddie Gray has come forward to say while in the van Freddie was throwing himself around inside the van as if to injure himself. When the police finally stopped Gray was injured. Not in the favor of the police, the other prisoner said Freddie asked for medical help but did not receive it immediately.
This story is developing in a direction that seems to contradict the stereotypes so many amateur pundits seem to be projecting that it would.
What's really been strange to me is that from the very beginning almost no one in Baltimore has been leveling accusations of racism against the officers. The black city councilmen have all been more outraged about the the rioting, arson and looting. Ministers from that neighborhood have not made accusations of racism.
On the 6th I'll be leaving South Dakota headed to Baltimore and hope to meet some of the good people there who spoke out and took their city back from the rioters. I'm proud of them and the way they conducted themselves.
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I watch the Nightly show at night...
I'm not sure that destroying your own neighborhood to where there is no place to shop is the wisest or most mature response.
As a white man I know I do not know what the emotions are. As a gay man, I've had experiences with police where once they found out I was queer, their attitude changed so fast.
I'm not sure that shitting in your own neighborhood is the most constructive form of protest.
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and since Latin is being slung around... here's some words written by an old gardener/poet who stopped in the process of working in his garden of cabbages and beans to admire his own work and then reminds himself to get back to work.
Sed fugit iterea fugit irreparabile tempus
Singula dum capti circum vectamur amore. ~ Publius Vergilius Maro
But meanwhile time flies, flies irretrievably
while we, with love of our deeds, linger long on every detail.
(Be glad I checked to see if translations were found on the internet.
There are loads of references to it but no full translations.)
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There were also 10,000 peaceful protestors, including many of the city's clergy, compared to a relative handful of thugs taking advantage of the public sentiment to cause trouble.
There is a not a solid line between "The cops are racist, and thus we will inflict anarchy on the city" and "There is no problem, those acting out are just animals". There are plenty of people who are horrified and furious, but are expressing it in a healthy way. But that isn't headline fodder.
As East pointed out, there is still tremendous inequality in this country and it's getting worse, not better. Some but not all of it is based on race. These individual cases act as catalysts for decades of pent-up frustration, and thus getting into armchair debates about the minutia of what took place between the citizen and the police is almost besides the point. Is the reaction logical and proportionate to the particular incident? No probably not, but that is because the incident is just the proverbial straw.
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and whose name I REFUSE to remember)....and we sit back and allow it with not much of a whimper. We hear them lie and say they aren't racist when over and over we find out they ARE RACIST...and we don't hold them accountable for their lies....
Sagittarius
Capricorn
