My only beef is that the attitude towards protesting/rioting involves a huge degree of confirmation bias. All the people who complain endlessly about BLM riots seem to turn a blind eye whenever there's a sports riot. So does that mean that football scores are more riot-worthy than police brutality and mass-incarceration?
I don't support rioting in any fashion, but the hypocrisy here is palpable.
I tend to agree, but specifically the black community had been producing evidence of aggressive police behavior since at least the 1990s when people started to pay (a small amount of, though widely swept under the rug) attention to the crack epidemic and gang shootings. Americans tend to assume incorrectly that after the 1960's the civil rights movement ended and the violence against racial minorities died down (or that there was only that big push for equal rights by MLK). It's more accurate to see the civil rights movement as ongoing.
As a Bostonian, we had our sports riots after the Red Sox world series in 2004 (multiple injuries reported and specifically the death of an
Emerson student). But we also had the
Busing CrCIA which is still a
gigantic stain on Boston. We even executed
Sacco and Vanzetti based on dubious testimony, the judge was on record for having a predisposed negative opinion of immigrants (and due to a unique Massachusetts law, presided over the Appeals and denied them outright), and the fact they were Italians who supported anarchists in Italy (because they were destitute poor and it was the 1920's when anarchy made sense to the people on the margin). Compare the legacy of the later two and you realize we're still regarded as one of the most tribal cities in the North.
e: wee bit of editing
Poll