This is heartbreaking #BaltimoreRiots pic.twitter.com/dCgRxW8i9v
— ☁️ (@ZackIsGod) April 28, 2015
Earlier in the day:
While many protest, the others steal weave #BaltimoreRiots pic.twitter.com/rOo7Yx2M50
— Dev (@DevCNYC) April 28, 2015
And when your Mom catches you rioting:-RW
Great clip of the angry mom.
ReplyDeleteShe slaps him around for shamelessly behaving like an animal. She didn't raise him to be a thug.
I'd like to see the moms of the cops who presumably killed Gray slap them around for the same reason.
Driving thru Compton during the Rodney King riot with ash falling on my car was uneventful because I had always treated people there with kindness and respect, which is what they wanted more than anything else in the world.
ReplyDeleteI can go virtually anywhere at any time if I simply blend in and act like a human being, rather than a steroid laced goon who wants to belittle people. If you respect people as human beings worthy of respect there is almost always an opening for conversation about simple things that allows you to display your ordinary humanity in a way that makes people feel at ease with you and enjoy your company in that fleeting moment.
It all boils down to treating people the way you wish to be treated. The Watts Riot, and the Rodney King Riot I experienced first hand could have been totally avoided if the Los Angeles Police Department had treated the people in those communities with decency instead of acting like goons. The L.A. Police Chief William H. Parker had always hired good old boys from the deep south who had served in the military, and had an unforgiving attitude toward anyone who looked like a nail that needed to be hammered. Hell, I was more terrified of the Los Angeles, and Long Beach Police Departments than almost any neighborhood that was considered scary.
When Latasha Harlins was killed at the age of 15 over a bottle of orange juice you could viscerally feel the vibration that Los Angeles was about to explode, and it did on April 29th, 1992. Coincidences rarely exist in police states, and the freaks in Washington D.C. love dates and numbers and a big one is coming up, good old Walpurgisnacht/May Day. President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" May 1st, 2003, and "Osama bin Laden's" supposed death on May 1st, 2011 come to mind as May Day events. It may be time to buckle up because real men go to Iran.
With all due respect, I'm just as kind and understanding as the next guy, but I've been robbed at gunpoint twice in my life, and if I told you the race of my attackers, I'd be committing racism. So I won't.
ReplyDeleteOn the OTHER hand, I was accosted almost nightly walking home from the store, or from work, by the Culver City cops back in the late '60's. It's against the law to be a pedestrian in L.A.
Reminds me: Classic tale by Ray Bradbury called "The Pedestrian", I think.
I was robbed at gun point by a hispanic male in a hair salon that was owned by a friend of mine back in 1978. I survived by relating to the robber as a human being and using my knowledge of body language. He entered the hair salon at night when my friend and I were the only ones in the shop, and luckily the next person who entered arrived one minute after he left.
DeleteThe body language aspect of this story is that I had to let him feel at ease by lowering my shoulders, and avoiding direct eye contact by looking down slightly. The situation could have been deadly if I had not shown submission because I was corned, and compassion was not what I was feeling. Under no circumstances could I let him see what my eyes would have betrayed. My eyes have an extremely piercing nature when I am angry, and would not have helped me in that situation.
I related to him as a human being by telling him the money was his but I would appreciate if he could somehow give me my drivers license back because the DMV was a nightmare. A week after the robbery I got a call saying the wallet and all it's contents, sans currency had been dropped in a mail box. So I had connected on some level with the robber over our dual frustration with the California DMV.
The idea of treating people I encounter with respect is a small way of fighting back against the murderous nature of the state here in America, and it costs nothing. Yesterday I had to travel through an utter wasteland of boarded retail businesses, strip malls, and dodgy housing to get to a car dealership that had the car I had been seeking for months. I encountered a lot of different people during the effort to finalize the purchase of this car, and it was sad, and eyeopening at the same time. No one on that side of Phoenix expects an older white male, with a closely shaven white beard, who dresses a lot better than the average American to treat them as human beings. When men and women of various races realize I am not a racist old man who looks down on them they relax, and a fun conversation can spontaneously erupt over small thing we have in common. The real shocker for the hispanics and blacks I encounter is when I say please, and thank you. I am afraid older white males for the most part treat these people in a very different manner. It all boils down to treating people with respect as human beings, because that is what they deserve.
We all live in a creation that is a holographic universe of unknown origin, which we sense through our five senses, and know with certainty we can take nothing with us when we pass into the unknown. If we were able to look beyond the labels that have been chosen to divide us, we may discover that wealth, color, and religion need not be the rules that define how we treat one another. Respect, irrespective of any label, without any cost applied to it, is the key which we are not allowed to see has almost limitless value.
Did you all catch Baltimore officials pleading with the rioters to stop yesterday? Their argument was that they have worked so hard to change the perception of Baltimore as a dangerous place in order to attract investors and businesses that bring wealth and opportunity, and this rioting undermines all that work, which does real, lasting harm to their own community. Strangely insightful, for a change.
ReplyDeleteThe very idea of politicians working hard at anything is laughable.
Delete"change the perception of Baltimore as a dangerous place"
DeleteBallmer is so far past being simply dangerous that it couldn't catch a bus back to dangerous. Anybody who doesn't know that has never been into the city outside the inner harbor or Camden Yard.
@Switchblade, man don't try your urban survival skills in Ballmer, whatever you do. You're way safer in Compton during a race riot than in East Ballmer on an average evening after dark. ;-)