{"id":2359,"date":"2010-07-09T12:53:52","date_gmt":"2010-07-09T16:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2359"},"modified":"2010-07-09T13:02:08","modified_gmt":"2010-07-09T17:02:08","slug":"so-what-do-we-call-this-kind-of-political-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/07\/09\/so-what-do-we-call-this-kind-of-political-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"So what do we call this kind of political violence?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Shoot that cop!” shouted one of the rioters on the streets of Oakland, California.\u00a0 “Shoot him!”<\/p>\n

As violence broke out in that city following an unpopular jury verdict<\/a>, I found myself asking again:\u00a0 What do we call this kind of political unrest?<\/p>\n

By most accounts, the verdict was astonishing:\u00a0 an all-white jury convicted a Bay Area Rapid Transit cop of the minor charge of involuntary manslaughter, after the white officer shot an unarmed and subdued black man in the back.<\/p>\n

The officer claimed that he meant to reach for his Taser.<\/p>\n

Outrage, protest, serious questions about the criminal justice system that led to this outcome, all of those responses would be legitimate.<\/p>\n

But for African-American rioters to smash storefronts, set fires, and mob streets — no.\u00a0 This from the LA Times:<\/p>\n

As darkness fell about 8 p.m. and most of the demonstrators went home, a group of people dressed in black and wearing black masks moved toward police.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was clear that they were taking an aggressive posture. … We started taking a number of rocks and bottles,\u201d [Oakland police chief Anthony] Batts said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Roughly 80 people have been arrested so far.<\/p>\n

And once again, this raises a legitimate question about the people in our society who are actually deploying violence as part of their political voice.<\/p>\n

(A similar In Box discussion involving the recent G20 meeting in Canada can be found here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Imagine the national outrage if tea partiers rioted in the streets after a jury verdict went against their cause or their allies.<\/p>\n

The political backlash would be extraordinary, and rightly so.\u00a0 National conservative leaders would be called upon to condemn the mayhem.<\/p>\n

It strikes me that a similar statement is needed here from Democratic and African American community leaders.<\/p>\n

Yes, they should call for a Federal probe into the way that this verdict was reached, and into BART’s record of interacting with minorities.<\/p>\n

But they should also condemn unequivocally members of their activist community that resort to this kind of violence and intimidation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Shoot that cop!” shouted one of the rioters on the streets of Oakland, California.\u00a0 “Shoot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2359"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2360,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2359\/revisions\/2360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}