11 stunning images highlight double-standard of reaction to riots like Baltimore

[gollygee]

http://mic.com/articles/116680/11-stunning-images-highlight-the-double-standard-of-reactions-to-riots-like-baltimore

You'll have to follow the link to see the actual images, but here's some of the text:

This has become an evergreen narrative in the aftermath of reactions to state-sanctioned violence against black people. But that it persists sends a troubling message about how officials and, by extension, many of the people they serve regard rioting: specifically, when there's white people involved versus mostly black people.

Usually, if a riot involves black people, it's connected to intense episodes of where systemic racism is undoubtedly at work. These episodes include the 1992 Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King beating verdict, the riots in Oakland after the 2009 BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant, and the national outcry immediately following the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That outcry included the city of Baltimore, where blacks now represent roughly 2 out of 3 residents.

But when a mob of mostly white people take to the streets, vandalizing cars, storefronts and street signs in the process it usually means someone either won or lost a game.

As Mic's Zak Cheney-Rice noted in January, these rioters are usually called "revelers," "celebrants" and "fans." They're not even called "rioters" in many cases. They're not derided as "criminals," "thugs," "pigs" or even "violent." Those descriptors, as events in Baltimore Monday night revealsyet again, are only reserved for black people. They're the ones who need to be quelled by militarized police forces. They're the ones who need to be off the streets, immediately. They're diminishing the validity of their cause. Yet, somehow, reckless behavior over a sports team, not a systemic matter of life and death, is viewed as a costly nuisance.

[hatrack]

1. Wall, meet nail

Thank you - perfect.

[Travis_0004]

2. The biggest difference is when white people riot nobody on DU defends them.

[notadmblnd]

3. ah.. where are you seeing people defend the rioters?

I'm not seeing it here in this thread.

[Ms. Toad]

33. Here's one example.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026578403#post27

(There were multiple similar threads last night. I just picked one of them.)

[notadmblnd]

34. I don't see that as defending the rioters

Suggesting that perhaps the authorities may learn something from it -is not the same as defending the action.

[Ms. Toad]

42. really?

It worked before.

Nothing else has. Now the cops are the ones scared. Good. Maybe they'll remember this fear the next time they think about murdering a man for nothing.

Like I said, I WENT THROUGH A RIOT IN 92. THE AREA IS BETTER AND NICER THAT BEFORE WE TORCHED IT. We even got a train line put in near my old place. Fuck money, lives matter more than your stupid economics. We need people to have money. Nothing matters more than your fellow man. Not even your 'valuable' property.

I repeat. IT WORKED BEFORE!!!!

I lost shit in the riots in LA TOO. I'm doing much better, now. Thanks. Everyone was insured. The businesses are better now.

Either stop the institutional racism and cop murders or I will burn my shit down to get to yours and burn that shit down too.

Looks to me like endorsing rioting. I don't see any fair reading of that exchange, particularly the bolded phrases, other than endorsing rioting.

[spinbaby]

36. The poster is confused

Too many here confuse understanding the violence with condoning the violence.

[notadmblnd]

40. I concur.

[Lil Missy]

55. Oh my gawd, where have you been?

Such threads and posts were rampant last night. It was disgusting.

Edit: Monday night, that is

[notadmblnd]

56. Sorry, I actually have a life outside the internet.

Not implying that you don't, but many others here seem not to have one.

[DetlefK]

4. Please remind me...

I'm a foreigner, so I'm not that familiar with domestic history of the US.

When was the last time a group of predominantly white people rioted and it was because of something more important than sports?

[gollygee]

5. Unfortunately, while it's been a while, it has happened.

I made a post about that. "More important than sports" but shameful and racist. There have been lots of white race riots.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026580664

[DetlefK]

13. The only riot in that article that matches my criteria are the Draft Riots during the Civil War.

But I guess, the labor riots in the early 20th century count, too.

[ieoeja]

44. 3 riots. Two cities wiped off the face of the earth. Hundreds killed.

2 Sep 1885 - rioting Whites kill 28 Chinese, burn down 75 homes

31 May - 1 Jun 1921 - Whites destroy the wealthiest Black community in the United States killing up to 300, wounding over 800 and leaving 10,000 homeless

23 Jan 1923 - Whites destroy the entire African-American city of Rosewood, FL


For some strange reason I could not find a single instance of bankers taking to the street in anger. I guess that means they are just better people than the rest of us.

[1StrongBlackMan]

57. Beat me to it. n/t

[Buzz Clik]

9. Probably Viet Nam.

[alcibiades_mystery]

12. Seattle, 1999 comes to mind

There would have been plenty of defenders had DU been around.

There were defenders of subsequent anti- and alternative globalization protest actions, so Travis is largely wrong in his judgment above.

[AgingAmerican]

31. Last I recall would be WTO riots in Seattle

1999.

[hatrack]

17. You don't see outrage at what this will do to their "community", either . . .

Lot less hot-n-bothered when it's Sacred Holy Sports as the proximate cause.

You know, as opposed to people being fatally shot and beaten to death by cops as the proximate cause.

[n2doc]

21. People here defended the riots when Kentucky lost this year in the final four

Said it wasn't a riot and nothing to be alarmed about. I suspect a search about previous sports riots will reveal some similar sentiments.

[enki23]

50. Probably because they're rioting over who won/lost a fucking sporting event.

Instead of rioting over a legitimate grievance.

And then there's the fact that people *do* defend them. Mostly implicitly, by doing things like forgoing the decision to call them all "thugs" and "animals" and more importantly by not using the rioting as excuse to come down yet harder against the civil rights of white communities. It's not that fucking hard to understand this.

[MaggieD]

51. Understanding why it happens is not condoning it

But it's no surprise at some point. We started a revolution against the British after they shit on us for years. Were you shocked and dismayed when you learned about that in elementary school history class as well?

[KingCharlemagne]

58. Mainly because when white people riot, they're usually rioting over the outcome of some

stupid fucking game and not something important like, oh, getting murdered by the pigs for no reason.

[bemildred]

6. "Selection 2000" comes to mind here. nt

[Buzz Clik]

8. Surely you aren't going for the Brooks Brothers riot?

[bemildred]

10. Well, it comes to mind.

There are better examples of "white riots", but it's hard to think of one with more effect, and it surely was illegal.

[KittyWampus]

14. that is a great example though. We can also throw in Clive Bundy.

Not as exactly similar.

But putting incidents on a spectrum.

[Buzz Clik]

7. Burning shit is what white people do when they are happy and drunk ...

... or sad and drunk. Not when they are angry.

Now do you understand?

[underpants]

19. In Morgantown WV they burn couches

To the point that there is a city ordinance against it. Doesn't matter big win or big loss in (insert sport) couches got torched.

[Buzz Clik]

22. That could be a lot of couches.

[spinbaby]

37. Yeah...

Boy do I miss those college days. I was involved in many a "white" Sunnyside riot.

[Vinca]

11. Good point.

[yesphan]

15. WWI Veterans Bonus March

http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/bonusm.htm

Snip>

Then on July 29,1932, troops did storm several buildings that the veterans were occupying as well as their main camp, setting tents on fire and forcing an evacuation. When it was over, one veteran had been killed and about 50 veterans and Washington police had been injured in various confrontations.

[RobinA]

16. I Don't Get

the point being made here. We've got a bunch of pictures picked to illustrate white guys burning things when sports teams win. Or something. White guys rioting is stupid, blacks guys rioting is stupid, any other guys rioting is stupid. Stupidity knows no racial boundaries?

[hatrack]

18. Last paragraph from post above (which you apparently didn't read)

As Mic's Zak Cheney-Rice noted in January, these rioters are usually called "revelers," "celebrants" and "fans." They're not even called "rioters" in many cases. They're not derided as "criminals," "thugs," "pigs" or even "violent." Those descriptors, as events in Baltimore Monday night revealsyet again, are only reserved for black people. They're the ones who need to be quelled by militarized police forces. They're the ones who need to be off the streets, immediately. They're diminishing the validity of their cause. Yet, somehow, reckless behavior over a sports team, not a systemic matter of life and death, is viewed as a costly nuisance.

[Pathwalker]

45. The rioters in East Lansing are called...rioters.

Every time Michigan state wins or loses in the Final Four, there's a freaking riot. The press calls them riots, the tv calls them riots, the police call them riots. One year they burned 2 cop cars, people get injured, couches, chairs, lawn furniture gets stolen and burned. People get arrested and end up doing time for...RIOTING. And, the students say SPARTY ON! They riot when they lose, they riot when they win.

[longship]

54. And then they sing the Fartan Spight Song. nt

[nxylas]

20. It's not difficult to grasp

If you actually wanted to see the point being made (white people burning stuff are revellers, black people burning stuff are rioters), I'm sure you'd find it easy enough.

[RobinA]

43. Oh.

I never heard of rioting white (or black) sports fans being called revelers. I think of all street mayhem-causers of this ilk as thugs, whether they are black or white, fans or otherwise. The point being made may well be valid, but it's not made very convincingly here.

[Dawgs]

23. Sorry, but the OSU image is a terrible example.

Unless the point is to show cops going overboard.

[Buzz Clik]

25. The point was whitey vs the cops. I don't think it was to assign blame.

[mopinko]

24. more than sports

the penn state riots were about more than sports. they were about a white sports celebrity being held accountable for despicable crimes.

[mountain grammy]

26. Yes, that is correct. It's hard to even think about. A new low.

[mopinko]

27. no hell hot enough

for some people.

[ScreamingMeemie]

28. 8 women were raped in Detroit in the aftermath of the Tigers winning the World Series in 1984.

For them, that "victory" lasts forever.

I had someone say that white people "only riot for a couple of hours, so it's different" on facebook today. Ugh.

[mopinko]

32. put another log on the fire.

[RockaFowler]

35. I was in Detroit in 84

That lasted almost 2 days
Selective memory with some people on Facebook today.

[ScreamingMeemie]

38. yeah, so were we.

I've cut ties with 5 idiots so far today. You are right about memory. All of them were high school friends who aren't racist, but...

[PatrynXX]

29. I remember vividly the riots near LaCrosse WI

during the Otter whatever river races met drunk people and the aftermath of red eyed high schoolers the next day smh happened alot till the canceled the river races or whatever. But 1992 maybe April they got tear gassed . at a Lutheran high school they were all WHITE.

ironically though the one guy on Unsolved Mysteries who I later watched his arraignment during a field trip because he set a car on fire... he was black , tough lesson of being about 17 yrs old and the room was so packed the cops shove people out of the way in the door. (me) I had no where to back up to. so I got caught up in that one. What happened to the big story of the KY riots after UK lost to WI

[Spitfire of ATJ]

30. IOKIYAW

[seabeyond]

39. did they show, or show whole video of the cops retreating from rock throwing? cause they could not

shoot to kill, yet......?

cause i saw the whole video. my son only got the cops retreating.

i told son. watch the beginning where these big grown men are hurtling the rocks back at the others. ony they had shields helmets and other to protect them. who they threw the rocks at had nothing.

they didnt show that part of the video. said a hell of a lot, on film.

[DreamSmoker]

41. ???????????????

I could not help noticing that there are no Old Folks in any of those pics..
NONE.......... All appear young with a few middle age Men in the mix...

[McKim]

46. Battle of Seattle Was Not a Riot

I was there and all I saw were 100,000 people in groups marching to shut down the WTO. A few kids threw rocks at a Starbucks window and wanted us to join them. We didn't. This was no riot. But it was a large, large group of people who understood the meaning of what the WTO was doing to America and they weren't going to stand for it.

[gollygee]

47. The word "riot" is used subjectively

If you had all been African American, that would have been called a riot.

[gopiscrap]

48. No kidding

how we phrase things, really sets the narrative! And often it is done deliberately!!

[spanone]

49. k&r...

[progressoid]

52. Rec!

[Rex]

53. Wow...speechless...

Amazing...this was a year after I was born! Just...wow...

[malaise]

59. So can I see a profile of the sports fans

Wait - you need tons of money to afford tickets
More white privilege