I hate to politicize the tragedy of a major American city being burned down but everyone else is doing it so what the hell? And by "hate to politicize," I mean I'm going to politicize this.
Baltimore has a majority minority police force, not a minority minority police force like Ferguson. Baltimore has a black female mayor, who also happens to be a very liberal Democrat and a rising star in the Democratic Party. Baltimore's city council and representation at the state and federal level is majority African American.
If socioeconomic factors cause/explain this as so many are arguing, do these left-wing African American leaders bear responsibility for failing to solve the socioeconomic problems that allegedly culminate in senior citizen centers and CVSs getting burned down?
If not, and if these leaders are helpless as past oppression and institutional racism continue to inexorably drive looting, rioting, and violence, are there no solutions short of inventing a time machine and wiping out the history of slavery and Jim Crow?
The notion that this violence is the manifestation of a history of police brutality, institutional racism, and past racial oppression is belied by the fact that the VAST MAJORITY of African Americans are NOT engaging in this behavior. They know it's immoral and inexcusable, regardless of issues with police brutality and historic wrongs.
The politicians/pundits/so-called civil rights leaders who implicitly condone/excuse this shit are themselves NOT partaking in burning down black owned businesses. They must also know that it's wrong. So why do they equivocate even when condemning these acts?
Why does Marc Lamont Hill tweet "to dismiss these uprisings as mere thuggery and criminality is to delegitimize and pathologize black rage," suggesting that destroying the city's economic centers is at least in part legitimized by "black rage."
Why isn't Marc Lamont Hill rioting and looting? Why is it acceptable for others to express "black rage" by burning down buildings, but not acceptable for Marc Lamont Hill?
The people burning down buildings are not political actors. They're not angry over Freddie Gray--men like Freddie Gray, that is young African Americans, are gunned down in Baltimore by gangs every day. They're criminals with no political agenda, no goals, no vision for the future.
But the politicians/pundits who DO have a political agenda are using these misguided fools as pawns in their perennial crusade to castigate American society as irredeemably racist in lieu of accepting the harsh reality that neither past nor current racism motivates these criminals.
