We all condemn the violence in Baltimore. Anyone who engages in it should face the consequences in a court of law. But that is beside the point. The problem is that certain members of the Baltimore police force are engaging in rioting as well. Don't believe me? Check out the pictures and tweets from jpmassar's diary.
In some circumstances, the police are shooting rubber bullets, pepper spray, and concussion grenades along with herding people into pens even when the circumstances do not necessarily warrant it. This is not going to solve things, but will only reinforce peoples' beliefs about police brutality. People like Malcom Taylor serve as a much more effective calming influence:
Mr. Taylor gathered 15 friends, including some church pastors, and came to the mall to try to calm things down.
“I helped assemble some brothers up from the community,” Mr. Taylor said during an interview in the mall parking lot around 9 p.m. By the time they reached the main group of rioters, he said, there were 50 to 70 people with him trying to quell the violence.
“We converged, we prayed, we sang, we stopped some fights, we stopped some rioting,” Mr. Taylor said. “We just held them by the hand and talked to them, and told them to calm down.”
My folks grew up during Vietnam; one of the lowlights was the police riots of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago along with the Kent State shooting in 1970 by the National Guard. In both cases, the authorities, sworn to protect and serve, were engaging in rioting. Tragically, four people at Kent State lost their lives 45 years ago. Now, we are seeing more pictures of the police engaging in rioting in the streets of Baltimore. I submit that this only serves to escalate the situation instead of pushing for meaningful political change. My own parents were beaten and roughed up during a round of police violence against protesters in Washington, DC protesting the trial of the Chicago Seven.
And Baltimore has been creating structural violence against its Black citizens. The death of Freddie Gray in a police van is hardly the only instance of this. There have been numerous instances of police deliberately jeopardizing public safety by driving in a manner in which to injure and maim people who were arrested, costing the taxpayers of that city millions of dollars in settlement money. But, according to certain twisted minds, that is simply the cost of doing business.
This is not a call to more violence at all; this is a call for people to be the bigger person than the people we are protesting against. Let the focus be on the Baltimore police and their use of excessive force against peaceful protesters. Let the focus be on the Baltimore police and their use of conspiracy theories to whip the people into a state of fear. The question is, are we willing to do more for the working people and the poor than the 1% is willing to do for a lie?
We all have our personal breaking points, and we all act on those breaking points in different ways. While I personally don't engage in violence and destruction of property when I hit my breaking point and believe those who do should be brought to justice, this is how certain other people act when they reach a breaking point. I'm not saying this to defend it; I'm saying it as a fact of life. Therefore, effective peacemaking involves recognizing other peoples' breaking points and avoiding them whenever possible. It's the same with personal space; we all have boundaries that we don't want people to cross. Unfortunately, the City of Baltimore does not seem to grasp this fact.
It doesn't do any good to preach at people about not voting. The City of Baltimore and its police force is more diverse than the one in Ferguson, and that did not prevent things from escalating out of control to the point where commerce in the city is shut down, schools are closed, and thousands of cops and national guard units have been deployed. When you disenfranchise people, they no longer buy into your system of government and they act out. When we were systematically disenfranchised by the British, we revolted against King George III. When the Sunnis were disenfranchised by the Iraqi government after we invaded and occupied it and left, they joined ISIS. And when Blacks were disenfranchised in South Africa under apartheid, they formed the African National Congress, long designated by the US as a "terrorist organization."
Back in 2014, not a lot of emphasis was placed on making policies that were relevant to the people who supported Obama in 2012 and 2008. And then people wondered in 2014 why Democratic allies did not get out and vote. My answer is that people don't vote when they are disenfranchised and (in their view) voting would not change anything. The burden of proof is on us as progressives to come up with a plan to enfranchise people in places like Baltimore who have been ignored for decades.
The alternative is to do nothing and to see more and more disasters like the Baltimore Riots in future years. Even if the TPP does not end a good chunk of manufacturing jobs, more automation will, meaning more people disenfranchised. Manmade Climate Change, if not addressed, will displace millions of people, lead to massive coastal flooding, and lead to a return of scenes from 'Grapes of Wrath,' where migrant workers trying to get a new life in California after fleeing the drought in Oklahoma were treated as second-class citizens. We can either use this as an opportunity to put a stop to police violence as well as the structural violence that has created millions of second-class citizens, or we can see things get even more out of control.