When Mr Zimmerman is found not guilty their will be some wailing… a couple of the usual local preachers will speak their piece… you’ll have Trayvon’s mother speaking in tears… and then that’ll be that…
George Z will move on to an undisclosed location… and Nancy and Jane will find someone else’s tragedy to flog to death…
As far as I can tell most of the riots since the 1960s seemed to have been more of a spontaneous combustion sort of thing. It got started in a neighborhood, spread throughout the city and then to other cities. I don’t know how. The news? Telephone? The collective unconscious?
Somehow the word spread and people joined in willingly or hid. I lived through the Sixties riots (much more sympathetically) and know that there were people working underground (a veritable conspiracy just like the joke) to incite them and disrupt the American government. And they were of groups both Black and other.
Most of the zeal of those times has dropped away. But to be fair and honest it would be difficult not to notice that there have been individuals, groups and at least one large news agency in this case presenting false or emotionally inciting information to the public at large.
A quick read through of various police sites in the area and as far south as Miami indicates that the law is taking the possibility of riots seriously and I would suppose that it’s better to be prepared than not. Because any number of innocent and peaceful people on all sides will pay a price.
I remember Al Sharpton threatening to “shut this town down” in the case of the New York police. And I wonder, if he has changed his ways, why he thought he served any purpose but to beg for peace by showing up in Sanford. Did he? I don’t know. If not, his presence may imply a subtle threat to do the same there. People associate him with stirring the pot.
I’ve read comments online about Black people threatening to kill a white person if Mr. Zimmerman is acquitted. People say stupid things when maybe they’re just blowing off steam. Yeah? Are any of them serious? I suppose some are.
I’ve also read some pretty inflammatory stuff on conservative sites. White people certainly haven’t held up their end in the rioting department in the last hundred years or so, but it sounds like a lot of people, on all sides, are just fed up with the continued friction. So who knows if someone will cast the first stone this time?
Nothing surprises me more, knowing the tension level most thinking, feeling people in this country are experiencing than when we don’t have violence after something like this.
I think it would be fine if I am surprised once again.
White people don’t feel the urge to riot, because they aren’t being disenfranchised. They aren’t the subject of institutional racism; they are the recipients of it.
White kids aren’t gunned down walking home with skittles because the color of their skin makes them a target. White victims aren’t called thugs who deserved it. White witnesses don’t have their testimony mocked in racist ways all over the national news media.
White people have the power. They have the guns. That’s why they don’t riot.
So true, and historically white people did riot when the felt they were being disenfranchised.
It’s easy for them to try to make it seem they are above that kind of thing now that every white person has power.
Or if he lost in 2012. Or if the cops who shot Sean Bell were acquitted. And I bet I’m forgetting a bunch. Some people are just about obsessed with the idea that black people are always on the verge of a riot.
That’s a reasonable viewpoint. But not as reliable, I think as it was once.
I’m not sure what you mean by “White people . . .are the recipients of it.” (institutional racism.) But I think I get what you are trying to say.
So you get my sense of humor can be grim. Who’s got who beat in the violence department?
It’s not a list I want longer on my side, that’s for sure. Sigh.
ETA: Just the thought of there being “sides” is stomach turning to me. Is that the way people want it?
I’m still waiting for Joe Klein to apologize for predicting race riots when Do the Right Thing was released.. he’s on to new lies no picking on atheist..
Who’s talking about sides? I’m just trying to set the record straight with regards to the history of mob violence in this country.
If you had said the past 50 years, I would have shrugged it off. No need to bore everyone with a list of sports riots. But 100 years ago, the country was yet to experience the hell known as Red Summer. Or the Tulsa or Rosewood race riots. One would have to really break their back to give black people the “win” for rioting if they were truly being fair in their accounting.
Rioting isn’t a black or white activity. It’s an angry people activity. You don’t have to be on either “side” to see this.
Or a “my team won a national title” activity. (Not to change the subject, but WTF is up with that?)
Don’t call other people names in this forum.
Drugs and alcohol, stupidity, ‘everybody else is doing it so it must be OK’-type irresponsibility. I don’t know if there’s much more to it than that.
No, because the jurors will be so frightened of a race riot that they will convict Zimmerman. Or, if Zimmerman is found not guilty, the Justice Dept. will be there immediately to arrest Zimmerman for denying Martin his Constitutional rights.
No! Me also think that am will happen! Bizarro!
That reminds me of what happened in the Diallo and Bell cases: not this. The police were acquitted and there were no riots. It’s pretty damned sad that there are so many comparable cases to this and that people keep expecting riots.
Just as they didn’t in the Diallo and Bell cases.
There were something like 1700 arrests incidental to the demonstrations that followed. And, we have Martin’s look alike dad in the WH, which means that the JD will be paying extra attention to the case.
Even a cursory inspection will show substantial differences between Diallo/Bell and the Martin/Zimmerman cases, as well as the racial/ethnic hostilities generated by the case.
You must be shitting me. If not, Google them.
It’s interesting, when Black Americans race riot it’s, almost, always because of a perceived injustice and the target of the anger is mostly inanimate objects. When White Americans race riot it’s all about killing Blacks and ethnically cleansing their towns and cities.
It’s also interesting to note how these race riot’s deaths breakdown. White race riot, lots of Black folks killed at the hands of the rioters. Black race riot, lots of Black folks killed at the hands of the folks trying to suppress the riot.
Riots? Maybe, doubt it. Race riots? Actual race riots? No.
CMC fnord!