Measure ad performance. Select basic ads. Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. In other words, a riot is often a symptom of a larger, underlying problem—not the problem itself. When protests broke out across the United States in the spring of , news outlets showed individuals breaking into retail stores and stealing items, lighting police cars on fire, and breaking glass.
Why were buildings attacked and statues destroyed? The answer is more complicated than it seems. Martin Luther King Jr. Riots have been around since before the American Revolution. When their pleas were ignored, they rioted. When institutionalized racism and socioeconomic disparities persist for years and years, making certain American populations more vulnerable than others, collective frustration is bound to erupt in demand for change.
Consider the civil rights movement. Grassroots efforts were enacted to end racial discrimination and segregation and obtain equal rights for Black Americans. Still, many of the marches, sit-ins, and Freedom Rides were met with criticism, hatred, and violence from opposing parties, including many members in authority roles. America has evolved, and policies have changed, but riots have persisted, and for good reason. Oppression, referring to prolonged unjust treatment, takes its toll.
When people in power fail to address the problems facing the oppressed, who are very often marginalized and minority individuals, an uprising will inevitably happen. Violence is not a preferred action by protestors but rather a consequence of being ignored, criticized, and oppressed after numerous attempts to be seen and heard.
Consider the George Floyd protests that erupted in all 50 states , marking what experts call the largest movement in U. These protests eventually spread around the world. These were not the first protests of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The first one occurred in after the death of year-old Trayvon Martin. An analysis of the available FBI data by Vox's Dara Lind found that US police kill black people at disproportionate rates: Black people accounted for 31 percent of police killing victims in , even though they made up 13 percent of the US population.
Although the data is incomplete, since it's based on voluntary reports from police agencies around the country, it highlights the vast disparities in how police use force.
Higher crime in black communities doesn't fully explain the disparities. A study by researcher Cody Ross found, "There is no relationship between county-level racial bias in police shootings and crime rates even race-specific crime rates , meaning that the racial bias observed in police shootings in this data set is not explainable as a response to local-level crime rates. But Thompson said it also takes years of neglect, despite peaceful calls for change, for discontent to turn into violence.
In the s, people engaged in nonviolent protests as part of the Civil Rights Movement, filed complaints through the NAACP, complained to media, and threatened litigation, Thompson said. In Baltimore, locals complained to media , filed lawsuits over police abuse, and, finally, protested peacefully for weeks before the protests turned violent. In Charlotte, black communities have long complained about mistreatment by police — including, previously, the police shooting of Jonathan Ferrell , an unarmed year-old black man who was shot 10 times and killed by a white police officer after he crashed his car.
It was only when these attempts at drawing attention to systemic problems failed that demonstrators rose up in violence, including in modern-day Baltimore and Charlotte.
But if you protest peacefully, they don't give a shit. A California police officer directs traffic around a shopping center engulfed in flames during the riots in Los Angeles. Social justice riots are often depicted as people senselessly destroying their own communities to no productive means. President Barack Obama , Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake , and members of the media all used this type of characterization to describe the riots in Baltimore.
It was a widespread sentiment online after the Charlotte protests, too. But riots can and have led to substantial reforms in the past, indicating that they can be part of a coherent political movement. By drawing attention to some of the real despair in destitute communities, riots can push the public and leaders to initiate real reforms to fix whatever led to the violent rage. The s unrest, for example, led to the Kerner Commission , which reviewed the cause of the uprisings and pushed reforms in local police departments.
The changes to police ended up taking various forms: more active hiring of minority police officers, civilian review boards of cases in which police use force, and residency requirements that force officers to live in the communities they police.
People would say that this kind of level of upheaval in the streets and this kind of chaos in the streets is counterproductive," Thompson said. Sugrue agreed. Similarly, in Los Angeles, the riots led the Los Angeles Police Department to implement reforms that put more emphasis on community policing and diversity. The reforms appear to have worked, to some extent: Surveys from the Los Angeles Times found approval of the LAPD rose from 40 percent in to 77 percent in — although approval among Hispanic and black residents was lower, at 76 percent and 68 percent respectively.
It's hard to say, but these types of changes might have prevented more riots over policing issues in Los Angeles. In the immediate aftermath, riots can scare away investment and business from riot-torn communities. This is something that remains an issue in West Baltimore, where some buildings are still scarred by the riots. In the long term, they can also motivate draconian policy changes that emphasize law and order above all else. The "tough on crime" policies enacted in the s through s are mostly attributed to urban decay brought on by suburbanization, a general rise in crime, and increasing drug use, but Thompson and Sugrue argued that the backlash to the s riots was also partly to blame.
The "tough on crime" policies pushed a considerably harsher approach in the criminal justice system, with a goal of deterring crime with the threat of punishment. Police were evaluated far more on how many arrests they carried out, even for petty crimes like loitering. Sentences for many crimes dramatically increased. As a result, levels of incarceration skyrocketed in the US, with black men at far greater risk of being jailed or imprisoned than other segments of the population. The irony is that many of these "tough on crime" policies led to the current distrust of police in cities like Baltimore, as David Simon, creator of The Wire and former Baltimore crime reporter, explained to the Bill Keller at the Marshall Project :.
And they say, man, this guy had 80 arrests last month, and this other guy's only got one. Who do you think gets made sergeant? Responsibility is diluted and crowds egg each other on. People can justify outrageous behavior and acting out in ways they would not on their own. Violent perpetrators can slip away and hide in the crowd. Angry, destructive people can act with no motive except giving vent to their frustrations.
This can be positive if they remain peaceful. When a small group becomes violent, research shows that a majority will call them out and demand they stop. The group unites, but in a sinister way. The police have a difficult job, which unfortunately has led to some making tragic fatal decisions. But dealing with the stress of the coronavirus pandemic may have led to some becoming even more reactive. Once looters have smashed windows, some opportunists feel they might as well loot since others will take the property anyway.
Getting free goods is unfortunately too attractive to some. It is easy to justify self-serving behavior in a crowd. What is the solution? Psychological testing of police candidates needs reform so that only the most stable candidates are hired. Police should be given constant refresher training and emotional support to deal with burnout. Demonstrators need to be reminded that when some become violent, the majority should demand it cease and identify them to the police if it does not.
Demonstrators need to be reminded that peaceful protests get more accomplished than violence without leaving permanent scars. Levak is a Del Mar psychologist. Lazar is a La Jolla psychologist. For those open to reason, get your vaccinations, including your booster jab. Parents of kids eligible for shots should protect them before holidays. Opinion: I was afraid to stay and afraid to leave my abusive relationship.
I feel grateful that I had the courage to make that terrifying call to the police.
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