[nemo]

Isn't the goal to see that all have their rights, though? Certainly the travesties of justice that many African-Americans suffer daily are at least on par if not worse than getting a store trashed (having your livelihood destroyed, vs. having the opportunity to make a livelihood proscribed, and occasionally your life taken by bigoted cops) but that doesn't diminish or justify reckless and lawless destruction.

Our society spent centuries creating and maintaining the status quo of a class of people with nothing to lose and no way for most to be invested in that society, so it is harder to blame, but still the rioters aren't blameless, they did choose to do what they did.

[gethoht]

"If nonviolent criminal laws were enforced on college campuses or investment banks for just a single day in the same rates as in poor communities, there would be twenty-four-hour news vans outside of every local jail and immediate public hearings about the harshness and efficacy of our legal system." http://harvardlawreview.org/2015/04/policing-mass-imprisonme...

[nemo]

The ongoing travesties of justice that poor communities face are a disgraceful monstrosity of abuse, no doubt. The scale of disenfranchisement from mainstream society is hard to even get a sense of for most. Riots are in some senses a product of that disenfranchisement (people with nothing to lose, and a lot of pent up collective rage are likely to act out), and point to serious problems we need to grow up as a society to face and manage. Yet, the riots create conditions that make that progress more difficult. We live in an incredibly screwed up society.