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Here are more things riots accomplish: 1) They make us talk about motives and where the reaction is coming from. 2) They inspire empathy. They often start out

Here are more things riots accomplish: 1) They make us talk about motives and where the reaction is coming from. 2) They inspire empathy. They often start out as peaceful protests that go ignored -- they can be understood as the suffering going unheard. 3) They require urgent response. They are an extreme reaction, so they must have an extreme reason. And in some cases the reasons are valid (mass oppression & living in terror qualifies, I'd say). Invalid cases: Sporting events, bigotry. In re #6: > 6) They end up costing a lot of money, on the order of 10s to 100s of millions of dollars. Legal fees, fees paid for civil rights abuse, property destruction, hospitalization fees, and more. Most of which tax payers foot the bill for. A drop in the bucket, maybe, but this money could do a lot to improve a community instead of repair it. You could just as easily count the number of incarcerated blacks, lives taken by cops, time caged for crimes as simple as not being able to pay a fine for "manner of walking in the street." Looking at this money in isolation without considering the poverty on the other side is myopic.

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- kajecounterhack 11y ago
  Eddie Gray et al are the MLK, Rosa Parks, Gandhi of this situation. The riots are often peaceful protests gone awry, and this has happened over the course of various civil rights movement(s). > The only thing that riots do, in my view, is give a more negative view/stereotype of the class in question - I wouldn't say they are a step forward, but a step backward. This assumes the reaction to the riots is a stereotype and not people trying to empathize or understand where it's coming from. While there may be some like you who seem to react in the former, journalists and bloggers (and even this discussion! thanks for engaging) are doing their best to make the outcome the latter. > As for #6, yes, the cost of incarceration is a problem as well, but rioting is not fixing that problem in any way, only making it worse (by putting more people in prison). Actually rioting is in response to the problem in hopes it'll change, so in the long term making it better. What I'm saying is yes short term cost of riots are a thing. Long term benefit is much greater, long term harm/suffering caused by no awareness is much greater too.
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- davidgerard 11y ago
  > peaceful drives like those led by MLK and Gandhi. You need to reread Letter from a Birmingham Jail. http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.h... It's MLK on the subject of white tone trolls.
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- carapat_virulat 11y ago
  >We generally attribute the success of the civil rights movement to peaceful drives like those led by MLK and Gandhi Gandhi protests were peaceful, but disruptive of the normal functioning of the Colonial State, like for example the Salt March[1]. That was feasible because indians were a majority in the country. I can't imagine so many forms of economically disruptive protests that won't be considered violent in one way or another performed by a minority in a country. Specially when the people suffering the most are "de facto" segregated from most of the functioning economy. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March

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kajecounterhack 11y ago
Eddie Gray et al are the MLK, Rosa Parks, Gandhi of this situation. The riots are often peaceful protests gone awry, and this has happened over the course of various civil rights movement(s). > The only thing that riots do, in my view, is give a more negative view/stereotype of the class in question - I wouldn't say they are a step forward, but a step backward. This assumes the reaction to the riots is a stereotype and not people trying to empathize or understand where it's coming from. While there may be some like you who seem to react in the former, journalists and bloggers (and even this discussion! thanks for engaging) are doing their best to make the outcome the latter. > As for #6, yes, the cost of incarceration is a problem as well, but rioting is not fixing that problem in any way, only making it worse (by putting more people in prison). Actually rioting is in response to the problem in hopes it'll change, so in the long term making it better. What I'm saying is yes short term cost of riots are a thing. Long term benefit is much greater, long term harm/suffering caused by no awareness is much greater too.
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davidgerard 11y ago
> peaceful drives like those led by MLK and Gandhi. You need to reread Letter from a Birmingham Jail. http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.h... It's MLK on the subject of white tone trolls.
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carapat_virulat 11y ago
>We generally attribute the success of the civil rights movement to peaceful drives like those led by MLK and Gandhi Gandhi protests were peaceful, but disruptive of the normal functioning of the Colonial State, like for example the Salt March[1]. That was feasible because indians were a majority in the country. I can't imagine so many forms of economically disruptive protests that won't be considered violent in one way or another performed by a minority in a country. Specially when the people suffering the most are "de facto" segregated from most of the functioning economy. [1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March