If there is one thing that can definitely be said to be unhelpful with respect to Baltimore, I believe it is this: the sympathy of white liberals with the folks of Baltimore that comes couched in smug, glib moralizing about the indefensibility of rioting.
Riots of the type unfolding in Baltimore are not, first and foremost, attempts to be ‘helpful.’ Riots like these are expressions of pent up frustration and rage, undertaken by people who have lost all faith in any of the normal, purportedly ‘helpful’ channels or processes. They do not function according to carefully calculated strategies of what is likely or not likely to help a given cause. They are expressions of raw emotion on the part of people who are desperate, and who feel that their grievances have not been heard . . . by design. Instead of asking whether the actions of the rioters is ‘helpful,’ maybe a better question to ask is, “Is their rage justified.” I believe it is.
Some will argue that while the rage in Ferguson may be justified, violence and looting never are. Well, perhaps, but when it gets to the point that people feel they must riot in order to be heard, then they are already way past a point where they see any value in recognizing a society’s norms for what is considered to be “justified.” This is a community that feels it has been denied justice, not just in the case of Freddie Gray, but in case after case, and city after city, across this country over many, many years. They have watched as peaceful protest after peaceful protest across the country has failed to yield anything by way of substantive reform. Thus, anyone who presumes to preach to this community about behaving in a manner that is “constructive” or “helpful” is clueless, as well as being smug and condescending in the extreme. For these folks, the very notion of working through ‘proper channels’ or ‘the political process,’ indeed, of the very idea of ‘law and order’ and ‘justice,’ have ceased to have any legitimacy whatsoever. This is not to suggest that rioting is right, but rather that for the folks involved in these riots, categories of right and wrong seem to be little more than cruel illusions, rendering these terms largely irrelevant and useless in engaging the issues in any kind of constructive way.
What I believe the people of Baltimore need right now is a lot less sympathy, and a lot more empathy. Try to imagine the depth of the rage you would feel it were your children, or your community’s children, whom society had decided could be summarily executed by police, their killers facing virtually no accountability whatsoever. How many times would it have to happen before you were overtaken by cynicism towards terms like “justice” and “the rule of law.”
By the time we get to the point where riots such as these break out, we are WAY past the point of careful, deliberate planning and choices. Rational decision-making is no longer even relevant, because from where the rioters sit, if the world ever had any rationality in the first place, for them it long ago ceased to exist. Yes, you are right: riots hurt the very communities whose rage they are expressing. But to sit on the sidelines and lecture people about ‘misdirected’ rage is not only pointless, it is likely tantamount to pouring.gasoline on a fire.
A friend of mine tonight put it like this:
Is the violence and chaos upsetting, regrettable, and unfortunate? Certainly. Is it occurring because nobody’s taken the time to calmly and rationally explain to the rioters why rioting is bad? F*** you.
Exactly.
