What do you think of the riots in Milwaukee?

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L_Holmes
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16 Aug 2016, 3:15 am

To summarize what happened: a black man, armed with a stolen handgun, was shot by a black police officer in Milwaukee after attempting to flee and refusing to cooperate with the police. A protest that formed soon after the shooting turned into a riot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76DpmOAYVBM

I couldn't find a single news article that told the whole story, so I will link the Wikipedia page. Wikipedia has all it's sources linked, and judging from what I've read elsewhere the article is accurate. Feel free to check it out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Milwaukee_riots

Wikipedia wrote:
August 13

Between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m., hours after the shooting, a group of around 100 black protesters gathered near the scene at North Sherman and Auer to hold a protest, and confronted a line of 20–30 officers. Some of the protesters used social media to encourage others to participate in the demonstration. At some point, the protest turned violent. The Revolutionary Communist Party confirmed that some of its members were among the protesters and that they traveled to Milwaukee to "support a revolution" but did not intend to incite violence.

Several cars, including police squad cars, were set alight and a BP gas station was looted and set on fire as well. When additional officers dressed in riot gear arrived, gunshots were heard. Firefighters were initially unable to put out the gas station fire due to reports of shots being fired, but were eventually able to extinguish the flames. The Milwaukee Fire Department reported that bricks were thrown at one of their trucks. One officer was treated at a hospital for injuries sustained after being hit by a brick. The protesters also attacked reporters and a photographer documenting the incident. One reporter was shoved to the ground and physically assaulted.

An O'Reilly Auto Parts shop, a beauty supply store, and the local branch of BMO Harris Bank were also set on fire in the area. A MetroPCS store was among the businesses that were looted. A supermarket and a liquor store were destroyed during the rioting, as well.

In total, four police officers were treated for injuries during the riot and seventeen people were arrested.

August 14

In the early hours of August 14, Mayor Tom Barrett and other local officials urged residents at a press conference to help restore order. Barrett also urged residents to bring home any of their children who may be among the protesters. During the day, volunteers assisted police in cleaning up debris left by the riot. In the afternoon, about 100 people, mostly black, held a peaceful demonstration in front of the O'Reilly Auto Parts shop that had been burned during the riot. The crowd then moved to the local police station and held their arms up in the air as a form of protest.

More unrest occurred on the night of August 14. About two dozen officers in riot gear responded to the scene. Protesters threw objects at officers and a person was shot near the site of the disturbance. Police had to use an armored vehicle to retrieve the victim from the crowd. The victim was then taken to the hospital for treatment. A police officer was also injured and treated when a rock smashed into a patrol car windshield. Protesters also attempted to pull white motorists out of their vehicles.

August 15

Protests continued on the early hours of August 15. Demonstrators were reported to have thrown objects and fired shots shortly after midnight. Chief Edward A. Flynn said that the department's ShotSpotter system recorded a total of 30 instances of gunfire on the night of August 14.

By the morning of August 15, fourteen more people were arrested and four police officers were wounded, including the one hit by the rock smashing a windshield. A 10:00 p.m. curfew was announced for teenagers. Three police cars and a BearCat vehicle were damaged, another vehicle and a dumpster were set on fire, and a store had its windows broken.

The night of August 15 was relatively peaceful, with no property damage being reported. A few heated confrontations did occur, but were calmed down after six people were arrested.


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auntblabby
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16 Aug 2016, 3:32 am

chickens coming home to roost.



L_Holmes
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16 Aug 2016, 3:41 am

auntblabby wrote:
chickens coming home to roost.

So you're saying these riots are justified?


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auntblabby
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16 Aug 2016, 4:20 am

i'm saying we as a nation have screwed over the underclass for too long, refused to listen to their concerns, continued subjugating them in manifold ways, and we should not be wondering why they are behaving as they do. MLK said a riot is the voice of the unheard. that is NOT the same thing as endorsing violence. of course i really don't give a rap what anybody else thinks.



kraftiekortie
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16 Aug 2016, 7:04 am

I would tend to feel that the riots in Milwaukee are more "opportunistic" than most such protests.

It's possible that some of the "fringe element" saw looting opportunities, so they took advantage of the disorder.

There's genuine anger there, of course....but I find it misplaced in this case--even if it's "accumulated anger" from past police abuses.

A similar thing happened with the 1977 Blackout in New York City.



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16 Aug 2016, 8:18 am

I honestly think its just a bunch of thugs/gang members looking for any reason to cause trouble. Idiots that don't know the whole story but hear "black guy killed by cop", so they rush out to riot. News outlets should NOT be calling them protestors. They are thugs. They are home grown terrorists in my view. Gang violence has been an issue in Milwaukee for a while now I believe.

There is a gang problem in certain cities in USA, and the police need to be doing more. Do undercover work more, bust them up! It's time for a change in USA.



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16 Aug 2016, 8:22 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
I would tend to feel that the riots in Milwaukee are more "opportunistic" than most such protests.

It's possible that some of the "fringe element" saw looting opportunities, so they took advantage of the disorder.

There's genuine anger there, of course....but I find it misplaced in this case--even if it's "accumulated anger" from past police abuses.

A similar thing happened with the 1977 Blackout in New York City.


I agree, and I have lived in Milwaukee. I am sympathetic to some episodes, but not this one.



L_Holmes
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16 Aug 2016, 10:10 am

auntblabby wrote:
i'm saying we as a nation have screwed over the underclass for too long, refused to listen to their concerns, continued subjugating them in manifold ways, and we should not be wondering why they are behaving as they do. MLK said a riot is the voice of the unheard. that is NOT the same thing as endorsing violence. of course i really don't give a rap what anybody else thinks.

So basically, they are not responsible for their behavior, because this nation has screwed them over too long, and so this shouldn't surprise us. That's an interesting stance, considering that the whole reason the riot started was that a black police officer shot an armed and dangerous criminal. How does that have anything to do with black people being subjugated? The officer in question was protecting the black community. Not only that, but you can see and hear in the videos that they are intentionally targeting white people (I guess they are fighting racism with racism?), they injured many innocent police, and they looted and burned down businesses, all who had no involvement in what they were supposedly protesting. Their targets were all innocent, and the looting suggests that they don't really care all that much about a cause. They simply saw it as an opportunity to cause harm and take things that weren't theirs, under the defense that they are mad about racism.

I think, no matter the circumstances, this kind of behavior is completely deplorable, and the people who instigated this riot should be arrested and held fully responsible for their actions. That is, after all, what we do to people who harm innocent people for no good reason. I don't personally like it much when people say this is "understandable", because it seems like you are saying black people should be held less responsible when they do things like this. "We should treat them more nicely, because things are just so hard for them." Why are they less capable of taking responsibility? Why are they expected to loot, burn and riot at the drop of a hat?

If the only people who can end this behavior are ones other than the people who actually are responsible, doesn't that mean that black people will always be slaves? If even their own actions are not considered to be their own responsibility, but instead is the responsibility of white people, doesn't this enforce the idea that black people are inferior to whites, and are simply violent savages? Under that view, the actions of black people are always being blamed on white people, as if white people are their handlers. It's pretty f****d up if you ask me.


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kraftiekortie
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16 Aug 2016, 10:19 am

I've ALWAYS maintained that people are responsible for their own actions.

I've NEVER advocated that one race be treated with "kid gloves" and be held to a lower standard than another race.



L_Holmes
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16 Aug 2016, 10:50 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
I've ALWAYS maintained that people are responsible for their own actions.

I've NEVER advocated that one race be treated with "kid gloves" and be held to a lower standard than another race.

But a lot of people do, and it's often a lot more subtle than openly defending rioters, so people tend to not notice it. We've been conditioned in this country to believe this narrative of blacks being unable to accomplish things without help like affirmative action (implies they are incapable, unintelligent etc.), that we need to be extra cautious and nice around them so as not to upset them (implies they are quick to anger and violence), that we "couldn't possibly understand what they go through" (implies that they are so different from us that we can't possibly relate to them) etc. It is a bias that I think pretty much everyone in America has, which I blame mainly on the way we teach black history in schools. We only teach about black people in the context of slavery and racism. We feed children this information, and it makes them believe that this is all that black people ever were: slaves.

In any case, these kinds of things are a way of making white people feel less guilty, but they have a negative effect on the way black people are treated. Rather than being treated with respect, they are treated with condescension, because all anyone can think of when they see a black person is slavery, and how hard it must be to be black, and so they pity them.


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16 Aug 2016, 4:50 pm

Newark and Detroit have never recovered from thier 1967 riots. In fairness those riots make any of the riots of the last few years seem like a minor disturbances.


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kraftiekortie
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16 Aug 2016, 5:13 pm

The worst riot of the last 30 years was probably the Rodney King riot in Los Angeles.

Even the Rodney King riot was much less intense than the ones in Newark and Detroit.



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16 Aug 2016, 7:29 pm

The most fascinating aspect to me is how non-whites will be labeled "white", so we have someone to blame for the problems afflicting blacks.



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17 Aug 2016, 2:16 am

kraftiekortie wrote:
The worst riot of the last 30 years was probably the Rodney King riot in Los Angeles.

Even the Rodney King riot was much less intense than the ones in Newark and Detroit.


Detroit 1967 43 dead, 1,189 injured more then 2000 buildings destroyed
Newark 1967 26 dead hundreds injured
There were 159 seperate riots in the United States during 1967 not including campus unrest

Los Angeles 1992 55 Dead, 2000+ injured 3767 buildings burned
1977 New York City Blackout Riot 55 firemen injured 1616 buildings looted or burned, unrest in 31 neighborhoods
1863 New York City Draft Riot 120 Dead 2000 injured estimated. Outside of the civil war itself the worst insurection in US history.


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17 Aug 2016, 10:15 am

I keep thinking how it would go if that happened here in my city. It just wouldn't, for so many reasons.

For one, I live in a diversity-friendly city (we're technically a "sanctuary city" but we do deport illegals) with an abnormally large number of LBGTQ people, black and brown people (especially south asians), south asian, arab, and african refugees. The local police have some outreach programs for young black males, where they do joint community outreach and then the police take them on fun field trips, like to big museums and sporting events a few hours away. The police also have a heavy presence in all the convenience stores, which is a weird, but effective way to keep them in personal contact with regular people as we all buy our daily coffee and cigarettes and I guess rolling papers and whatever else people get. So the police here are pretty nice and no one has a problem with them. We don't have gangs here. We have a higher than normal number of community, technical and four year colleges.

I think if there was a riot like that here first people would be concerned and treat the rioters like crazy people. Then I think police would just shoot them. The community reaction would mostly be sad, like what happened to those people and how awful for the officers who had to shoot them. If they were rioting into a business, they would run a significant risk of someone in the store taking them out. If it was a car, I think anyone around here would assume the owner of the car to defend themselves with deadly force, or a passer by to come up and defend the victim with deadly force. If it were someone's house, forget it. You wouldn't get into too many houses before someone would cap you. That's all legal here in Virginia, and socially acceptable.

We do have a small Black Lives Matter organization here and they would have discussions following something like that, but people would be cool with listening to them. All the people heading that organization are personally known by other civic leaders so it's like, Oh Okay Sharon needs to come to talk to us so we need to clear our schedules. She's bringing people so make coffee and order some food, get some chairs. Call the news so they will know. I mean, we're just pretty nice here. The black leaders here are not people saying go riot in the suburbs, or an old pastor that no one listens to except for other old people- they're business owners, heads of organizations, board members, people who get stuff done and are respected. All the Milwaukee stuff just WOULDN'T HAPPEN.

We had a young man of color a few months ago who took off from his house with a real-looking toy gun and waved it at officers at an intersection until they were forced to shoot him. That's been the only "racial" incident that's happened here in my memory, and that has clearly been a mental illness issue.

If you ask me, these cities that are in trouble need to talk to other cities that are doing well and get some practical advice.



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17 Aug 2016, 2:44 pm

L_Holmes wrote:
kraftiekortie wrote:
I've ALWAYS maintained that people are responsible for their own actions.

I've NEVER advocated that one race be treated with "kid gloves" and be held to a lower standard than another race.

But a lot of people do, and it's often a lot more subtle than openly defending rioters, so people tend to not notice it. We've been conditioned in this country to believe this narrative of blacks being unable to accomplish things without help like affirmative action (implies they are incapable, unintelligent etc.), that we need to be extra cautious and nice around them so as not to upset them (implies they are quick to anger and violence), that we "couldn't possibly understand what they go through" (implies that they are so different from us that we can't possibly relate to them) etc. It is a bias that I think pretty much everyone in America has, which I blame mainly on the way we teach black history in schools. We only teach about black people in the context of slavery and racism. We feed children this information, and it makes them believe that this is all that black people ever were: slaves.

In any case, these kinds of things are a way of making white people feel less guilty, but they have a negative effect on the way black people are treated. Rather than being treated with respect, they are treated with condescension, because all anyone can think of when they see a black person is slavery, and how hard it must be to be black, and so they pity them.

Yeah, let's ignore history, that should work. Ignorance is bliss!