I understand, but I guess I continue to be unable to comprehend.
Looking at what is going on in Ferguson, MO over the past couple of days, I see what is going on. I understand the rage, frustration and anger. What I don’t understand is the self-destruction.
I know for a fact that young Black males (YBM’s) are “disproportionately represented” in our criminal justice and prison system. About 8% of the general population is over 40% of those incarcerated. I also know that a lot of YBM’s are “over-sentenced,” who receive sentences harsher than a White man with a similar record.
There are many factors that force a majority of YBM’s into the bottom of the economic scale. Lack of education, transportation and jobs they can get to make it very hard for the average YBM to move up in the world. A few do, but not enough. He has a lot of obstacles in his way.
Some, however, he creates himself. I have seen where a YBM has to be macho when confronted with an authority figure, be it a supervisor or law enforcement. They can’t take the tactical loss in order to achieve the strategic win. If he is doing something wrong that is minor, he can either accept it (ticket/warning/admonishment) and go on about his business, or he can get all up in the face of the Supervisor/LE Officer. The latter generally results in a firing from a job, or a felony charge which seriously hinders his life afterwards.
In this instance, from what I see, these two YBM’s were walking in the street, which gained the attention of the police officer. I don’t know what happened after that, other than Michael Brown ended up dead on the street, shot multiple times. Now here’s where the part I do not comprehend comes in. You are enraged. A young man was shot and killed by a police officer, apparently without sufficient justification. Regular, mature adults gather together and hold vigils, then protest against the government.
Then there are those who do the immature, stupid thing. They riot and loot local businesses. Let’s think about this for a minute, because the rioters I’m sure didn’t. You are already living in an economically depressed area. There is only independent mom-and-pop shops in your neighborhood because the national chains don’t want to deal with the graffiti, shrinkage (retail store terminology for “theft”) and all of the other myriad problems that you take on in such a neighborhood. You then destroy the mom-and pop shops. You break into them, steal what you can carry and then run off.
In the wake of the riots, your part of town looks more like Kosovo than America, no businesses reopen and then the Black community wonders why their part of town is so bad. Imagine if you will, taking a shit in the middle of your living room. Not just one, but every family member, for a couple of weeks. No one disposes of the waste, it sits there and accumulates flies and other insets. You then wonder why your house smells so bad. Yeah, same kind of thing.
Now, some people on Twitter did “helpfully suggest” that the rioters not burn down their own neighborhoods, but rather go into the “White part of town” and riot and loot there. Of course, a lot of White people in the suburbs are probably armed, so an angry mob might start taking some incoming fire. The bottom line is this: Work within the system. Peaceably protest for a redress of wrongs. Short of overthrowing the whole government, you are not going to win. The police have more resources, weapons and ammunition. If you get into a shootout with law enforcement, they will win. What you want to do is provide political pressure on elected officials to fire the aggressive bullies on the police force and change the laws to be less onerous.