You write this as if this kind of rioting is justifiable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bUSo1p66a0
Looting, destruction of property, shouting of “Shoot the cop, shoot that cop”… a very mature response.

Well, that’s one interpretation of what I wrote.

Read this with some interest. I think when i was younger, I might have had a more knee jerk reaction, bad brutal cop, innocent black man. As if no matter what the verdict may be, these riots are ever justificable.
Today, my take is so much different. I look for more proof to any incident that occurs in the news. I have observed over the years how truth becomes so propaganized and reinterprated that it is obscured by and caused to morph into the view that one may want it to serve.
I do not know for certain based on the trials and testamonies if this act was deliberate or not. It serves some to believe it was. It serves others to believe it was an accident. It is clear, however, that the insueing riots were deliberate. Stealing, looting, damage to property and humans was very definely an action decided upon by those involved.
Having been caught up in a senseless riot, seeing my home vandalized, watching six men jump a young skateboarder and beat him senseless, hearing his cries and then the laughter of those who hurt him, A sweat sheen glistened on their bodies, and the excitment and grins of pure pleasure at destruction turned my stomach. I no longer am willing to feel anything other than contempt for those who are participate in such behavior. They are larger, crueler and more dangerous than anything I have ever seen or experienced.
A line is drawn very clearly when you have witnessed this stuff up close and personal. Those that creat this mayhem do not give a rats ass about the incident that supposedly caused their actions. They are having fun, destroying others physically and materially, getting something for free and will brag for years at how they stuck it to whomever. Sadly, the press fails to notice the sheer fun the mob is having. Sadly, we excuse it because of whatever social ill they may have suffered.
This is not an act of the righteous, ever.

I would like to float the idea that never is this behavior excusable, not ever, not once, not by anybody. Accept the mob mentality, the excuses and you become part of the problem.

and there’s nothing new under the sun…sigh…
I couldn’t help but laugh at the last verse. I’m not sure if that’s what you were trying to evoke, but sometimes I laugh at inappropriate things. haha

You’re in good company, Tillman. I’m often surprised by folks’ responses. That’s half the fun — the other half being the writing.

KB
My comments would mirror those of Kate dollar. I have lived through the wanton destruction and burning of half of Washington, D.C. for no other reason than they could and reasoned that they would get something for nothing by a small amout of pillfering, all on the basis of social ills that they were supposedly rioting against. In actual fact, it was wanton thievery which hurt there own neighborhoods more than anything since the police walled off the rioters to contained areas.
Rioting such as has occurred in Oakland, L.A., D.C. and elsewhere with the justification that they had been socially or legally discriminated against is pure anarchy and should be treated as such.
The media’s attempts to justify the rioting and uprisings often based on their perception of social ills which need to be corrected (and sometimes not corrected) only fuels this illicet behavior. Like in Arizona and other states loike Cal. and my own Maryland, we must return to the rule of law and and enforce it.
There are ills we need to address, but this is not the way.
I think I preferred your previous one as this has too many interpretations which should not be considerations.
Have a great day

and as the crowd gathered on the bart platform, a cheer arose…….” white on! ” oh im sorry, i reached for my pen and reached a conclusion instead…..my mistake

Hi, Jack!

Thanks for reading.

Love,
K-B

Interesting comments. Interesting that some folks would interpret the writing as supporting violence. Interesting that the focus is on the rioting and not on the pain of the families involved — the officer’s and Oscar Grant’s.

Could it be we are more afraid of the violence than we are empathetic?

Love,
K-B

Kit, You are at the top of the heap when your writing:
a. generates as much rancor as yours does.
b. gets your fan club straight to the front lines defending you (as if you need their help)
c. confuses the less literate of your readers
d. keeps even the more literate guessing at your motive and intent

Fabulous work, most beloved sibling.

Dear Brother Elmer,

I’m not sure that keeping readers guessing about motive and intent is always good writing, but it sure can be fun sometimes.

Love,
K-B

Wow, K-B. This one evoked and invoked your readers. Great job, again.
Your adoring cuz, C

K-B, my wife and I were actually driving through Oakland that evening. On the road, we weren’t listening to the news, unaware of what was going on until we were crossing the Richmond-San Rafael bridge. Our son calls us on the cell. Like us, he has a couple of large pieces of his life in Oakland, knows we’re on the road on our way to see him, calls us to tell us what’s going on. For the rest of the drive, my mind churns, my gut wrenches, my anger roils.

We have raised five Black boys to manhood. Not in a ghetto, not in an inner city. Not in a city at all. Not one of them, not one of the five! escaped police harassment and brutality as young men. And so when Oscar Grant is murdered, I take it in a very serious way. And if I take it seriously, I’m figuring others out there, others who share the color of Oscar Grant, take it even more seriously. We get mad, K-B, we get mad.

A man is on the ground, face down, helpless, compliant if for no other reason in a defenseless position. He is under the control of a police officer. Offense? Jumping a turnstile in a metro station. The officer breaks the snap that holds his gun in his holster, thumbs aside the strap that secures the gun to the holster, draws the gun from the holster, aims it, pulls the trigger. All of that and twelve people decide there was not intentionality in his actions.

He says he didn’t mean to draw his pistol, only his tazor.

Awww. Hmmm. So he didn’t really mean to be at the lynching. He wasn’t really for it. Doesn’t believe in that. But couldn’t leave. What would people think? But what an ugly thing to happen. Gosh!

Assuming he never intended to murder, let’s have the officer explain to the mother and family of Oscar Grant that her son, their manchild, deserved to be spread-eagled on his belly on a concrete floor and tazored – OOOOPS, I mean shot in the back – for jumping a turnstile.

And so we have yet another chapter in the long, long and continuing book of lynchings and shootings of Black men by innocent White men. Innocent because they really, really didn’t mean to do it.

And for your readers who reply to your ode about this terrorism and violence by condemning the so-called riots that follow, they need to extend their readings to include this long, long, and continuing book.

No, wait, they don’t have to go through all that trouble. All they need to do is look across the room at the picture of that loved one on their wall and imagine how they would feel if that loved one were shot in the back while lying face down on a concrete floor.

Thanks, K-B for giving me a chance to vent a bit. It helps. A bit. I still feel like I could release even more if I threw a brick through a window.

Thank you, Mike, for sharing your story — and the one to come!

Love,
K-B

Hi, Honey!

Nice play, Kevin!
Love,
K-B

I really liked this!!!

We have always had two systems of justice — one for the military and police, and one for civilians. “Military justice”, like police justice, brings absolution and exoneration automatically; civilian justice is based on race, wealth or political clout. If a civilian has the money or clout to buy a good defense, he escapes punishment in most cases. A person of color, especially if poor, is frequently denied justice. Oscar Grant is just such a man. Shame on America!

1. Shame on the officer, who was in the company of his full force – thus outnumbering the young man faced down and on the floor – AND suffered from a phobic-breakdown (blackphobia??) so intensely that he couldn’t tell the difference between the weight and feel of a round gun’s butt and a squared plastic-light taser. Personally, I don’t buy the mistake argument. Every profession develops skills and intuitions where everything – even a keyboard – becomes a blindfolded second nature. I don’t buy the mistake argument. Don’t buy. Don’t buy it. Don’t buy it.

2. Shame on the rioters (personally, I think there’s a psychological schism somewhere because I don’t understand the Laker fan mentality to destroy no matter if winning or losing for example) who exploit social injustice to create more injustice (private property, innocent bystanders etc.) I’ve witnessed a mob nearly kill one person to death 40-to-1, and it’s chilling to see the animalistic pitbull-like rage that engulfs people who let emotion take over reason. I’ve also seen footage of lootings and it’s clear it’s all rage and pillage, which I would say ok, display some of this but go to the police headquarters at least and confront those who are apparently at fault. There’s something coward-like in not dealing with the source of one’s anger.

Hola, One Billete (tee and hee),

I’ve read some very interesting analyses of the rioting phenomena (my choice of word). Nonetheless, it still astounds me — harming your own as a response to being harmed, yikes!

Love,
K-B

I have wanted many times to write about this episode, but all I could find was diffused outrage. Kit-Bacon has concentrated the full outrage into a small nuclear device for readers to “contemplate”. But there it appears in just a few words – small and full of fury. Contemplate deeply only with extreme caution.
Only art and poetry can concentrate such emotional fury.

I have not felt such outrage since two nooses were hung from the “whites only tree” in the schoolyard in Jena, Louisiana, close to where close relatives live:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/national/usstatesterritoriesandpossessions/louisiana/jena/index.html

Lets stop making excuses for killing unarmed man in cold blood. If cop cant tell the difference between taser and real gun he should not be cop. Taser is bad enough! This is murder!!!!