Current Events > Riots are to be expected when even MLK can't fix police brutality

(+) Yeah! (+)

People say that only peaceful protests work and should be used. But we already literally had MLK marching to address the same issues. We've had constant peaceful protests since he died. We've had Kaepernick, we've had police summits, review boards, you name it, all across the country. We've had protests led by paragons like MLK, we've had decentralized protests, and everything inbetween. There's been op eds, documentaries, speeches, initiatives, studies, commissionsions. People have tried making personal connections with the police and joining the police force to fix it from the inside.. And yet, the same antagonistic relationship remains.

I'm a peaceful person, I don't like senseless violence, I don't like rioting. I wish the political actions taken could be more rational and directed. I believe that peaceful, non-violent, directed protest should be the first, second, and third option. But we've had police brutality riots in MLKs time, up until the present because little has changed. When people feel nothing changes, no matter what they do, when they feel fundamentally insecure, unrepresented, and dehumanized, when they feel hopeless, they snap. And that snapping isn't good for anyone. What else could possibly happen? Are people really expected to just take a police for abusing them with impunity for generations? And just keep their heads down and repeat unobtrusive forms of protest when they fundamentally don't believe that it works and haven't seen evidence that it does? Human beings don't work like that.

The key to prevent this from happening is to make sure that peaceful protest actually works and that is seems like a rational option, rather than screaming into the void. Everyone condemning the riots should be making a personal committment to fight for police reform and for the immediate radical overhaul of our criminal justice system. Otherwise, you are contributing directly to the frustration and lack of efficacy that inevitably results in riots, over and over. You can't say it isn't predicabtle at this point. If you don't let people react rationally and achieve a just result, they WILL react irrationally.

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