Why Are They Rioting? Don't They Know it Doesn't Help Their Cause?

This is addressed to those of you who ask these questions. 

First of all, it’s disingenuous of you to ask, if you have no interest in “helping their cause” to begin with.

Second, MOST of the protesters have nothing to do with the violence and destruction. There are Protesters and there are Rioters. Yes, some of the protesters may tip over and join the riot, but DO NOT confuse the two. And DO NOT ignore the first group because you are dismayed by the other!

But let me address your complaint directly, about those who are very intentionally TEARING SHIT DOWN! It’s because they aren’t thinking about “helping their cause”. They are saying “Fuck YOU!” And they are saying it to a system they know is interested in everything but “helping their cause”.

But before I go on, let me ask YOU a few questions:

Don’t you know that when you support a system that forces more and more people into poverty and helplessness, they are going to be pissed off about it?

Don’t you know that when you keep slapping someone over and over, that eventually they are going to slap back?

Don’t you know that if you keep telling someone that they’re living in the Greatest Country on Earth, that they’re respected and that everything is being done to elevate and support them, when it is all an obvious lie, that after awhile they will stop listening to you, shout BULLSHIT, and damn you for the lying ass that you are?

And don’t you know that if people who are entrusted with “protecting you” repeatedly do you harm, then lie about, excuse or forgive it, that eventually you will strike back, and make no excuses, nor ask forgiveness?

Okay! Got that off my chest. So let me try and answer the legitimate part of the concern, about the violence that too often comes with protest. And how do I know it’s legitimate? Because to a substantial degree, I share it.

I’m a Black American male, born in Detroit, who was a teenager, living in Manhattan just a few blocks south of Harlem, when the waves of rioting in the Black communities in the 1960s began.

Ironically, I didn’t learn until much later that in America “race riot” used to be a term applied when a lot of White people stormed into a Black Neighborhood to raise hell. Often because some uppity nigger had “insulted” a white man or woman and the entire community had to be put in its place.

When those riots happened in the 60’s I had mixed feelings. On the one hand, it was kinda cathartic to see Black folks doing something that upset and scared the White status quo, that it felt powerless to do anything about. On the other hand, rioting was so damned STUPID! Why destroy our own neighborhoods? Why burn down the only stores that existed where you lived? Why destroy the homes and livelihoods of your own. It seemed to me that it would make a lot more sense in we went into White neighborhoods after instances of racist brutality, and raised some hell THERE.

What I didn’t yet understand was that it wasn’t possible for Black folks to protest in white neighborhoods. When White folks had stormed into Black neighborhoods, or even when they’d attacked peaceful Black & White demonstrations, they’d always had the police (and if necessary, the national guard and the military) firmly on their side, if not actually leading the way.

Note that almost all of the 60’s rioting took place in cities outside of the South, which had the largest per capita Black populations. Because in the South, even the most peaceful of demonstrations were met with unbridled violence. As regards the North, where riots did happen, one might find references to the phrase, “Give them an inch, and they want to take a yard!” Which is true, but honest only if you preface it with, “First, we stole a Mile from them! And they’ve been demanding it back ever since!”

This is an historical lesson that the Black community has learned over generations. The slave revolts of Denmark Vesey and Nat Turner in the 1800’s were followed by brutal attacks and retribution being visited on both slave and free Blacks across the south, whether they were in any way connected with or expressed sympathy with the revolts or not! All through the earlier 19^th century, efforts by Blacks to organize, to protest, to gain rights were met by brutal force, as evidenced by the proliferation of lynchings, bombings and the terror campaigns of the KKK between the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement.

And then there’s the case of the revolutionary Black Panther Party, which originated just around the time the riots started, and whose members brazenly patrolled their own communities while fully armed with both automatic weapons and law books, directly confronting police violence. The Panthers were systematically wiped out in about a decade, through outright murder, incarceration, and the organized and condoned mis-application of the law by police and the courts.

In short, there’s a long history of suppression of Black protest.

So, when you look at today’s rioters, you must understand the social DNA that they spring from. And let me clearly make the point that UNDERSTANDING is not CONDONING. It is still as stupid in 2020 as it was in 1967, to burn your neighborhood convenience store and your neighbor’s car. (A police station that has been abandoned over ‘safety concerns’? That’s a different story.)

But however “unacceptable”, the violence and destruction - even to the point of self-destruction - is frequently, and very naturally, the result of on-going abuse, neglect and not being heard. And this must be understood or it will never change. You can't expect the calm, rational, result-oriented problem-solving of safe, comfortable people, who believe and trust in the process that has served them. Not from those who CAN NOT believe or trust in a process, because it HAS NOT served them. From the latter, you are going to get visceral, emotional responses.

It’s easy for me to see and to feel the senselessness of the rioting, and to wish it would simply go away, so that the focus can remain on the police violence that took the life of George Floyd and too many others. And I’m sure that most of those protesting peacefully feel the same way. But I too have the privilege of being comfortable, of feeling relatively safe where I live, even of having had overwhelmingly positive experiences with police.

Because as I said, in 1967 I lived near Harlem, not in Harlem. And I was from a working-class family, not a poor one. I had educated parents and a wonderful upbringing. I had too many opportunities to list here. And all that gave me huge advantages, including a promising future, including hope!

I’ll bet that every Black American who was born around the time I came into the world – 1954 – can remember like I can being told by any number of my elders that, “You can’t EVER trust a white man. They will do you dirt as soon as it’s to their advantage!” Or, “The system is set against you, and there’s NO WAY you will ever make it as a Black Man in America!” Or, in regards to interracial relationships, “She may say she loves you, but a time will come when she’s gonna call you a Nigger!” These were common refrains among people of my parents’ generation who had been brutalized and betrayed until cynicism had crusted over almost every hope.

But I didn’t hear these things from my parents. They too had escaped the very worst of racism, though they’d experienced way more of it than I have. They’d survived it well enough to live some of their dreams, to overcome some of their fears, to become convinced that it wouldn’t hold them back from LIVING!

One of the very best lessons I remember receiving from my father was about racism. He let us know that it was all around, that we must be aware of it, but that we needn’t fear it. He compared racism to a huge hole in the road that you come upon when aiming to get somewhere. “Don’t be stupid and walk right into it,” he’d say. “Jump over it, if you know you can make the jump. Otherwise, you just have to find a way around it. The MAIN thing, though, is to not ever let it keep you from getting to where you’re headed.”

My God, what an amazingly powerful lesson that has proven to be, through my entire life! Basically, it was a lesson in empowerment. But, it isn’t a lesson that everyone gets. I got it through privilege. And one way of defining privilege is as a benefit one has that they did not have to earn. I was able to get and retain that lesson because I wasn’t personally brutalized and impoverished by racism. But I grew up around many who weren’t so fortunate.

Yesterday, as I listened to reports of the demonstrations happening across North America, and around the world, and feeling so grateful for them, for the outrage, the demand and the hope they express, I knew that there would be burning and looting too. I was proud of Atlanta’s mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, for so passionately demanding an end to the violence. And I was gratified to hear so many citing the words of Dr. King, who said that violence is a natural expression of those who have not been heard. Because I know, from MY experience, that many of those who were RAGING were fueled by a sense of hopelessness about anything resembling an American Dream.

This must be understood and remembered. Because the roots of this weekend’s violence go deep. If you are one of those who say, “Slavery ended 150 years ago. Get over it!” then you are a FOOL. If you are one of those who say, “There’s no more racism! How can there be racism if we had a Black President?” then you are another FOOL.

Because every time we decide that school budgets don’t matter, or that all those people on welfare are just lazy, or that investor profits are more important than workers’ rights, or that aboriginal Americans and Canadians have so many privileges that the rest of us are paying for, or that all that rioting just proves that they are all thugs and they should all be arrested or shot… all of that is just contributing to the development of more future rioters, who would rather throw a brick at a cop than vote, because they legitimately feel, “What the Fuck has voting done for us anyway!”

If you doubt this truth, look into the personal histories of those who fill our prisons, our group homes, our mental institutions and our shelters for confirmation. Overwhelmingly, their childhood stories are chronicles of abuse, neglect, violence and poverty. It's a truth that our societies (US and Canada) continue to ignore.