I see a lot of lumping of looters with rioters. Hell, I personally don't think all kinds of rioting should be lumped together. I have always despised looters unless looters were looting some feudal lord's assets. I have despised reprisals against poor innocent good white folk like Reginald Denny and wished for maximum punishment for the black people involved in such an evil act. That kind of rioting, I have no use or tolerance for.
But there is a place for rioting if focused on government property. When the government fails, you have many ways of protesting. The obvious one is legal peaceful protests. But guess what, the racists in St Louis wouldn't have been moved one bit by that. As a nation, we have cheered on violent uprisings in other countries whose people wanted to protest the local governments. MLK needed MalcolmX So why should be appalled by African Americans powerless against a system that condones law enforcement killing off unarmed fellow African Americans show no respect to the system? Civil disobedience that takes on violent forms has been a long standing proven form of forcing change. It has the indirect effect of making the authorities respect the peaceful protestors.
But then my tolerance for this kind of rioting only extends to vandalizing the property of the government authorities involved in such oppression. Again , the key word is tolerance. I do not recommend this as you main form of protest. But if you have to , stay away from the looting and vandalizing of private property. I am not going to lose sleep over a few cop cars destroyed. One can replace cop cars. You can't replace human lives lost. But that's the dilemma, isn't it. Rioting by nature is not a very disciplined act. You don't hear from the Nation of Islam these days . But if they still were a force, we could have used their help in protecting private property in the neighborhood while putting the burden of the protecting public property on the cops.
White people should be thrilled that the rioting was all that happened. If this happened to white folks, you would have thousands of militias fighting the government forces by now.
Anyway, I expect differing views on whether any kind of rioting should be tolerated. Understandable. I vary on how I feel about rioting based on my own mood as you can see from a little bit of rambling that went on in this diary. But I do feel that rioting and looting are two very distinct actions that should not be lumped together when judging people in a community.
P.S.: I find it funny when authorities parrot obvious pandering shit like "oh Michael Brown would not have wanted any violence. Or Eric Garner wouldn't want any violence". How the hell do they know that? Hell, if I died at the hands of a cop, my ghost would be screaming burn this bitch down too. If you died, maybe you wouldn't feel the same. Still, I find it insulting a dead victim's name is invoked to further one's viewpoint whether it is on the rioters POV or the powers that be's POV that everything be so peaceful.
In conclusion, let me be clear, I am not saying we should riot. But I understand if certain kind of SPONTANEOUS UNPLANNED rioting happens and won't be losing much sleep over wondering why people burned a few government assets, broke a few government office windows as long as there were no killings.