2 ms·

If the police are a menace, then protest to the mayor and city council. If the city council and mayor are not responsive, then vote them out of office. There is

by Kaizyn 11y ago

If the police are a menace, then protest to the mayor and city council. If the city council and mayor are not responsive, then vote them out of office. There is also recourse to the state government and the media as needed. Ghandi faced a much worse situation in India and succeeded without looting or rioting.

pjc50 11y ago
On Ghandi, a very different situation: http://flavorwire.com/516442/mahatma-gandhi-baltimore-and-the-myth-of-nonviolence http://flavorwire.com/516442/mahatma-gandhi-baltimore-and-th...
soylentcola 11y ago
Well, as someone who lives in Baltimore, I can say that this is exactly what has been happening for the overwhelming majority of people. Just last night, thousands of people poured into the streets in peaceful marches through town and to city hall. It also happened last weekend. I'm not excusing violence or suggesting that it is productive...but I get it. Human beings have tipping points. It's different for every individual but when pressure builds and crowds start moving, brawls and riots aren't uncommon to see. This happens even when people are happy about something (like a home team winning a championship game). So you can imagine that when the media starts freaking out and spreading some viral "meme" about planned riots and sends in a couple hundred riot cops (and a tank!) to corral a couple hundred high school kids at their bus stop, preventing them from going home, there might just be some of those people who are a little more pissed off than the rest and have a little less impulse control and decide to start throwing water bottles and rocks. And once shit starts rolling that way and the situation escalates, you can see why some people who might have been shit on and beaten up by cops all their life might just see this as a chance to hit back. So you get a few hundred cops fighting with a few hundred pissed off citizens and the broken cars and windows we all saw on TV. But those few hundred people who went the violent route are still a few hundred out of tens of thousands who live here. The vast majority of us (many of which have had it MUCH better than the people in West Baltimore) haven't been angry or frustrated enough to resort to violence. Thousands of us have marched and petitioned and protested. But it doesn't surprise me in the least that for a few hundred of us, a bat to the cop car seemed like a bit of payback for generations of a boot to the throat.

by Kaizyn 11y ago

pjc50 11y ago

On Ghandi, a very different situation: http://flavorwire.com/516442/mahatma-gandhi-baltimore-and-the-myth-of-nonviolence http://flavorwire.com/516442/mahatma-gandhi-baltimore-and-th...

soylentcola 11y ago

Well, as someone who lives in Baltimore, I can say that this is exactly what has been happening for the overwhelming majority of people. Just last night, thousands of people poured into the streets in peaceful marches through town and to city hall. It also happened last weekend. I'm not excusing violence or suggesting that it is productive...but I get it. Human beings have tipping points. It's different for every individual but when pressure builds and crowds start moving, brawls and riots aren't uncommon to see. This happens even when people are happy about something (like a home team winning a championship game). So you can imagine that when the media starts freaking out and spreading some viral "meme" about planned riots and sends in a couple hundred riot cops (and a tank!) to corral a couple hundred high school kids at their bus stop, preventing them from going home, there might just be some of those people who are a little more pissed off than the rest and have a little less impulse control and decide to start throwing water bottles and rocks. And once shit starts rolling that way and the situation escalates, you can see why some people who might have been shit on and beaten up by cops all their life might just see this as a chance to hit back. So you get a few hundred cops fighting with a few hundred pissed off citizens and the broken cars and windows we all saw on TV. But those few hundred people who went the violent route are still a few hundred out of tens of thousands who live here. The vast majority of us (many of which have had it MUCH better than the people in West Baltimore) haven't been angry or frustrated enough to resort to violence. Thousands of us have marched and petitioned and protested. But it doesn't surprise me in the least that for a few hundred of us, a bat to the cop car seemed like a bit of payback for generations of a boot to the throat.