Push for police accountability. Better yet--push for agencies to seek out recruits with character. Elect officials with the same goal.
Thinking more about gay rioting I'm reminded of the second major gay riot that occurred on American soil, the White Night Riot in San Francisco in May of 1979. They didn't occur because Harvey Milk and George Moscone had been killed. At the time of their deaths there was just a peaceful vigil. On the night of the riot we damaged, and unsuccessfully attempted to set fire to, city hall and set a dozen police cars ablaze. The riot occurred after Dan White received an absurdly lenient sentence for the murders. If justice had been served there wouldn't have been a riot. There's really not much difference between the cause of the White Night Riot and the cause of the riots happening today, except that the rioters today have experienced not one injustice, but regular injustice, time after time after time.
If everyone took that primitive attitude, think of the damage it would do. Whole political movements, bodies of law, corporate departments, government agencies, academic disciplines and industries would be destroyed. If we based our obligations to one another on one individual to another rather than the identities assigned to us by credentialed specialists, we wouldn’t be the enlightened society we are today.
I find this horrifying. That was a jury trial. So are you saying if a jury returns an unfair verdict it is okay to set fire to public buildings and property? Is it okay to go torch the jurors' houses--after all, they returned the verdict you didn't like. Is it okay to endanger their lives? Is it okay to take the lives of someone standing nearby when the police car explodes? Is this really what you mean to say?
All I'm saying is that when injustice happens people get angry. That's just part of the human condition. Anyone who doesn't understand that is doomed to see it happen again and again. One of the aftereffects of the White Night Riot is that California got rid of the "diminished capacity" law that had allowed White to get off with an absurdly light sentence.
The solution is not to vilify the rightfully angry rioters. Or to get all hand-wringy about property damage. The value of the damaged property pales in comparison to the lost lives. The solution is to make changes to society so that they have no reason to get angry again in the future.
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