Baltimore Riots

[Spider-Dan]

People are no longer paying attention to the acts of brutality by police in Baltimore. Their attention has now gone to the acts of violence by a mob of thugs and criminals.

The cops are now off the hook despite what appears to be police malfeasance that led to the murder of Freddie Gray.

What constituted "paying attention to the acts of brutality" before the riots?  The police have been in a perpetual state of "off the hook" since all of these killings started, where every incident is classified as either a fully-justified use of deadly force or a lone bad cop gone rogue.  At no point have police departments been held to greater accountability for the culture they have created among their officers.

This is not to justify the riots; as you said, violent protests only serve to distract from the original issue.  However, at a certain level, when people are being killed over and over and nothing is being done, frustration is unavoidable.

[Sunstroke]

I'm surprised no one has spoken about this mother. She slapped her son for being out there as one of the rioters.

http://time.com/3838330/baltimore-mother-slapping-protester/

That was awesome.

[Spider-Dan]

Somehow, I doubt we will see all the same people who jumped on Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice admonishing this mother for domestic violence.

Remember, when a woman is violent, it's funny and/or appropriate...

[Sunstroke]

Somehow, I doubt we will see all the same people who jumped on Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice admonishing this mother for domestic violence.

Remember, when a woman is violent, it's funny and/or appropriate...

Somehow, I have a hard time believing that even a Gumby-esque person like you could stretch what this mother did to her 16-year old rioting son to the bloody and bruising beating that Adrian gave his 4-year old son.

I can only assume that a mentally retarded child hijacked your keyboard...

[Spider-Dan]

Don't forget, I also compared it to what Ray Rice did to his adult girlfriend.

I am disappointed, but not surprised, to see that after people like Cris Carter were on TV crying and saying that violence against children is wrong! we now have law enforcement openly cheering it.

The main problem I have with this is that we had the media insisting that Peterson didn't just take corporal punishment too far... no, he's a monster and hitting your kids is never acceptable.  I didn't hear any of them making the argument that "it's OK to hit your kids a little bit, but not that much"; the most people would say in Peterson's defense is that he comes from a backward culture and he just doesn't know any better.

I'm just tired of this hypocrisy when it comes to hitting children.  Outlaw it, or don't, but stop playing this game where we cheer parents for hitting their kids some of the time and condemn them for hitting them other times.  (If this was a father hitting his rioting daughter on national TV, the entire media would be losing their effing minds right now.)

[Cathal]

^^^ Doesn't context matter? I don't know how Peterson's kid behaves but let's just say he is a normal kid but Peterson decides everyday to hit him with a switch or stick or whatever he used. That's unreasonable. But hitting your kid to stop looting and causing mischief should be applauded. You can't have a broad rule, there has to be exceptions.

[Rich]

What constituted "paying attention to the acts of brutality" before the riots?

No one is talking about Freddie Gray anymore. Thought that was obvious...

[Rich]

Somehow, I doubt we will see all the same people who jumped on Adrian Peterson and Ray Rice admonishing this mother for domestic violence.

Remember, when a woman is violent, it's funny and/or appropriate...

 

[Rich]

^^^ Doesn't context matter? I don't know how Peterson's kid behaves but let's just say he is a normal kid but Peterson decides everyday to hit him with a switch or stick or whatever he used. That's unreasonable. But hitting your kid to stop looting and causing mischief should be applauded. You can't have a broad rule, there has to be exceptions.

Please don't let the thread be derailed from the topic of discussion because someone wants to be an agent provocateur.

[Cathal]

Please don't let the thread be derailed from the topic of discussion because someone wants to be an agent provocateur.

My bad. I shall go back to the sidelines.

[Spider-Dan]

No one is talking about Freddie Gray anymore. Thought that was obvious...

And what did talking about Eric Garner or Tamir Rice or John Crawford accomplish?  You are acting like simply talking about these slayings (while law enforcement is protected from consequences) is some sort of valuable resolution.

edit: Furthermore, even in this thread, the subject was never really Freddie Gray.  The thread was started not to talk about his death, but to praise black leaders who admonish black rioters (and later switched to a discussion of rioting and unrest in general).  To act like now because of these riots, justice for Freddie Gray will be derailed would be laughable if it weren't so depressing; nothing will happen to Freddie Gray's killers, and nothing was ever going to happen to them.

So in short: we can cheer on black people who tell other black people to settle down, and we can cheer on parents hitting their kids for getting out of line, but when it comes to cops killing unarmed people over and over, these same cheerleaders fall silent (when they aren't actively defending the cops instead).

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Spider


Here is what the riots do. It allows folks moderate whites to consider the following position at least plausible:

See what they are doing in Baltimore,  white folks didn't riot b/c OJ got off killing a white person.  This shows how violent blacks are.  It is no wonder Baltimore cops don't give black male teenagers the benefit of the doubt,  the whole lot of them are thugs. The cops are justified in putting their safety first during a stop.

Not saying I hold such a position,  but the riots make me less sympathetic to the minority community,  and more sympathetic to the difficult and dangerous job that a Baltimore or LA cop has.

[Phishfan]

^^^ I heard this argument last night.

[Spider-Dan]

OJ Simpson does not represent government authority, so I don't see how that's relevant.  Nobody rioted over Casey Anthony, either.  And to be honest, if these same "moderate whites" hadn't taken a position on the topic after the ~4th highly-publicized killing of an unarmed black man (or boy) in the last year, they effectively have chosen a position: police brutality is a non-issue.

I think the more appropriate question is:  what was the outcome of the Rodney King riots?  How were they resolved?

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

OJ Simpson does not represent government authority, so I don't see how that's relevant.  Nobody rioted over Casey Anthony, either.  And to be honest, if these same "moderate whites" hadn't taken a position on the topic after the ~4th highly-publicized killing of an unarmed black man (or boy) in the last year, they effectively have chosen a position: police brutality is a non-issue.

I think the more appropriate question is:  what was the outcome of the Rodney King riots?  How were they resolved?

it is relevant bc a black man murdered two whites in cold blood and escaped punishment yet nobody rioted,