When A Riot Is Not An Act

If you'd turned off the sound on the TV this past Monday night and just flipped back and forth between Fox and MSNBC with nothing but Buffalo Springfield in the background, you still would have known where the "battle lines bein' drawn": MSNBC--West Baltimore is justified in burning itself down, at least as much as if not more than the “space to destroy” initially granted to the “protestors” by Mayor Rawlings-Blake; Fox--so now you call in the National Guard?

In any case, the punditry from the even more doctrinaire progressives were way more inconsistent and disingenuous about the nature of the Batimore's urban spasm, calling the coverage an overreaction driven by racial bias/animus at the same time they were touting the revolutionary nature of the rioting as legitimate political expressions.  Marc Lamont Hill.  Ta-Nehisi Coates.   The “intifada” hashtag.   A facebook comment [which pretty much sums up the progressive left’s attitude]: “F*** buildings”. No matter whether there was anything—or anyone—in said buildings.

Consider that both MSNBC and Fox  focused on the burning cars and flying liquor bottles as opposed to the good citizens who may have tried to do things to quell the violence.   No one stays glued to the TV to watch the latter.  MSNBC is just as capitalist as Fox, even if they can’t admit it on the air because they’d alienate their core audience  [capitalism, again.  Oh the irony.]

Additionally, the further left again tried to compare criminal unrest perpetrated by predominantly white youths usually celebrating sports events with [usually] non-white youths committing similar crimes most often in response to more salient [if misperceived] events , in order to show that the media and wider American cultural response is to dismiss the white rioters as engaging in harmless fun while the black rioters are labeled as thugs and criminals.

Here the progressives seem to have a point.  But not really.  It's easily parried on two particular grounds.

The first is that rioting by any one at any time—because of the metastatic nature of mob violence—presents enough clear and present dangers that no matter what the motive or impetus, it needs to be met with immediate overwhelming force, deadly if necessary.   I’ve said the same thing about rock-throwers in the “occupied territories”: the nationalities of the rock throwers or the victims, or even the age of the rock-tossers, have no bearing.  You toss a rock at a moving car containing passengers, you are a clear and present danger to life and should be dispatched forthwith if need be to stop the assault.  

[In fact—and here’s where I may have to give some ground to progressives—the only reason the authorities DON’T dispatch the rioting white youths might simply be actuarial: fear of being sued if you shoot a rich kid.  Much less likely in the inner city.]

The second and more crucial point is that while both sports- and grievance-driven unrest are both wholly illegitimate, it is the second version--rioting as the de rigeuer reaction to perceived injustice--that, contra to [or even because of] the progressive tenets that declare it justified, presents the much bigger threat to public order.  

[I can hear you, doctrinaire progressives about to yell racism, so read that again:  PUBLIC order, not SOCIAL order, and it isn't me conflating the two.]  

Grievance-driven riots are far more likely to have been deliberate rather than spontaneous, evidenced by the the direct targeting of the forces of law and order and general infrastructure as opposed to victims of opportunity.  This adds an element of intent and thereby amplifies the degree of criminal responsibility.

They also tend to be more trenchant.  Ironically, it’s Baltimore's own history that bears this out: the April 1968 riots following the MLK assassinations lasted for ten days in that city.   It therefore makes sense that more draconian quasi-military responses are necessary because these deliberate riots are less likely to stop in and of themselves.  

So when it takes a Ray Lewis to tell you “This is wrong.  DEAD wrong.  Go home”…you know which riot is not an act.