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No, they are being murdered, how would you respond? We can't possibly understand the anger these people feel. If an innocent man is murdered by police, and they riot as a result, we need to start listening.

As for the domestic terrorists, they were all out and about the city. Either way, a group of people with guns you watch, how could you know where they'd go next, or what they'd do. And the core fact is, if those white people were pepper sprayed by cops in the same fashion, they'd be rioting too.

Edit: I should emphasize that I don't condone torching random businesses, what I am saying is that as a white person, thats not my opinion to have in this discussion since its anger boiled over. Some people just had enough, and I don't blame them. We don't get to decide their form of outrage.


I'm sorry, but I don't think the solution is to immediately reach for a Molotov cocktail and firebomb a Target. We're just going to have to agree to disagree here.

Edit: the law defines the boundaries of what is acceptable outrage and what isn't.

Edit2: there is a world of difference between reasonable civil disobedience and firebombing your local Target.

> Edit: the law defines the boundaries of what is acceptable outrage and what isn't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Disobedience_(Thoreau)

"[i]t is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.... Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice."

ETA:

> Edit2: there is a world of difference between reasonable civil disobedience and firebombing your local Target.

What is "reasonable civil disobedience"? If that Target is only in the neighborhood because it's an experimental LP store put in an incredibly impoverished area so that they can develop better techniques for putting people of color in prison, is it suddenly reasonable? https://twitter.com/IanColdwater/status/1265867904844693505

Who are we to make that call, in either direction?

> If that Target is only in the neighborhood because it's an experimental LP store put in an incredibly impoverished area so that they can develop better techniques for putting people of color in prison, is it suddenly reasonable?

That's a pretty absurd, carefully crafted hypothetical situation that does not apply here.

> .... Yes it does. That's literally why that Target was there. Did you read the link?

Edit: alright, on that point I partially concede. I didn't realize that, and that is disturbing. However - and I just can't believe I still need to keep repeating this - I'm simply not going to go firebomb it because I don't like it. There are plenty of things I really don't like. Do I firebomb them because I don't like them? No, I choose not to firebomb them. Because that's not something responsible citizens do, at least in my worldview.

.... Yes it does. That's literally why that Target was there. Did you read the link?

ETA:

> I'm simply not going to go firebomb it because I don't like it. There are plenty of things I really don't like. Do I firebomb them because I don't like them? Nope, I choose not to firebomb them. Because that's not something responsible citizens do, at least in my worldview.

I'm very, very glad that you and I have a voice in our communities/countries and don't need to resort to violence to get our message across. I'm not glad that the reason you and I have a voice and the people rioting in MN right now do not, is because we benefit from state violence and they are on the receiving end of it.

>...immediately reach...

One would have to ignore a large part of history in addition to events over the last 20 years to make the claim that this was a knee-jerk reaction.

"Certain conditions continue to exist in our society, which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention." --Martin Luther King.

"The Flag is drenched with our blood, because so many of our ancestors was killed because we have never accepted slavery. We had to live on it, but we never wanted it. So we know the flag is drenched with our blood. So what the young people are saying now - give us a chance to be young men [...] we know this country was built on the black backs of black people across this country and if we don't have it you ain't going to have it either cos we going to tear it up. That's what they saying. And people ought to understand that. I don't see why they don't understand it. All across this country, they know what they've done to us." --Mrs Fannie Lou Hamer

"The Governor of Michigan should give a little, and put out the fire. These are very good people, but they are angry. They want their lives back again, safely! See them, talk to them, make a deal" --Donald Trump, on white rioters

"...These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won't let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!" --Donald Trump, on black rioters.

"Before I get to that, how would you define somebody who puts a cat where he is and takes all the money out of the ghetto where he makes it? Who is looting whom? Grabbing off the TV set? He doesn't really want the TV set. He's saying screw you. It's just judgment, by the way, on the value of the TV set. He doesn't want it. He wants to let you know he's there. The question I'm trying to raise is a very serious question. The mass media-television and all the major news agencies-endlessly use that word "looter." On television you always see black hands reaching in, you know. And so the American public concludes that these savages are trying to steal everything from us, And no one has seriously tried to get where the trouble is. After all, you're accusing a captive population who has been robbed of everything of looting. I think it's obscene." --James Baldwin 1968

Any picture of the rioters/looters will show you they are people of all races. Not just black people.

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