5 ms·
I believe it is subverted anger and perceived injustice that causes these types of riots. I don't think people think "hey, I can get some free stuff", but I do
by e40 12y ago
I believe it is subverted anger and perceived injustice that causes these types of riots. I don't think people think "hey, I can get some free stuff", but I do think they have the "man, this pisses me off" in mind when they leave for the gathering.
Look at the Watts riots in the 60's. I think everyone, at this vantage point in time, believes that was caused by the deplorable conditions there and the state of civil rights for blacks, and not because people wanted stuff for free.
The 2007 financial crisis had far ranging effects, and some of them take a while to percolate down and cause problems. My city is next door to a poorer one, and the first thing I thought of was, eventually, the crime in my neighborhood would go up. It took 3 years, but it happened.
- twic 12y agoI think injustice fed into these riots, but more indirectly. I don't think people were driven to rioting by anger at injustice ("man, this pisses me off"). But i do think that injustice had eroded restraints on their behaviour, because they no longer felt part of the society which owned the shops ("screw the rich guys who own this place"). Which was ironic, because the shops looted were almost all in the rioters' neighbourhoods, and many of them will have been owned, outright or as franchises, by local people. I don't know much about the Watts riots, but my impression is that they were quite different. There, most of the participants were attacking the police or any white people they came across, rather than looting their own neighbourhood. The Broadwater Farm and poll tax riots in London were the same - battles between the authorities and people angry at the authorities. The 2011 riots were quite different.