Don't cut Baltimore rioters too much slack

Today we find our land coming out from underneath another cloud of rioting and looting. The scene as become all too familiar: the police allegedly mishandle/abuse/kill an innocent and chaos ensues. We will stand by the word allegedly, for now anyways. If everyone has the right to their day in court then the cops and even the government does as much as those they pursue. Rioting, doing great bodily harm, and destroying property will not help anyone.

Yet there are folks out there who seem to feel that the Baltimore rioters are doing the only thing they can do in light of the issues they face. When you are poor, come from poor schools and poor family environments and then have the government (one can almost hear someone accusing The Man of holding them down) and society working against them through supposedly racist institutions, the only option they have is the riot. It's the only way, the argument goes, in which they might change the system and perhaps make it more equitable.

Right.

We've mulled that idea over a bit in the last few days and we are close to believing that the it might harbor either the most patronizing view of the downtrodden than almost any other liberal or progressive idea concerning the poor in history or, worse, the most insulting. To assert that they have no choice but to riot seems to say they lack free will. But if that's the case, then it seems that violence back at them may be society's only recourse. If they don't (or more to the progressive point, can't) understand right from wrong them there's no reasoning with them is there?

We can't accept that. The reaction of that one mother who openly berated her rioting son appears to demonstrate that yes, the poor can know the difference between right and wrong. And to the other point, that those born without the silver spoon somehow have the philosophical understanding that the system is stacked against them and that looting is the only means of change, well, we think that gives them little more than license. Rioters simply don't think things through quite so deeply. They tend to simply react, and arguably only because opportunity has knocked. The opportunity to act with impunity.

Yes, there are ways in which the government and police act and react which should be changed. They are human like the rest of us who can and will make mistakes for myriad reasons. Yes too that the poor merit a certain extra consideration because their poverty often does work against them. Yet at the end of the day they are responsible for themselves as much as the rest of us. Cut them slack perhaps as circumstances allow. But don't write them a blank check either: they have an idea of what they're doing. They know that breaking the window of a squad car is as wrong as breaking the window of their neighbor's car.

Sensory Overload: Is the World All That Bad?

A South Charleston, South Carolina police officer has been accused of murder following a traffic stop. Based on the video evidence, the case against him seems clear, although we must remember that even a police officer has the right to his day in court. This incident follows several other similar incidents of supposed police brutality such as in Ferguson Missouri and New York City. These and other altercations across our country have led to cries against police brutality (as though anyone is for it) and have caused others to question our cultural respect for authority, particularly authority with a badge. Our police, they say, have been militarized and too often abuse their power.

In the middle of Detroit we have the Woodbridge Historic District. It is an active community and perhaps the most vibrant of its kind inside the city limits beyond the more well known communities such as Indian Village and Corktown. Woodbridge is a nice place to live in part because it has an active online community along with a messaging system to alert neighbors of mischievous to downright reprehensible behaviors within its boundaries. It is interesting to note that when something unsavory is noticed residents are encouraged to notify the police immediately. At times, and we say this with all due respect, the shrillness and insistence is so intense as to make one wonder whether its okay to go outside, because every day some new evil arises to almost make one feel unsafe.

What might these two seemingly diverse issues have in common? Nothing short of the information revolution.

That by itself isn't bad, of course. On the whole its surely a good thing. Yet as with all human endeavors it comes with a caveat: it may make things appear worse than they in fact are.

Hardly a day goes by anymore without some new tale of an abuse of police authority rising or of a suspicious vehicle creeping down a thoroughfare in Woodbridge. Many such reports from either source are worth public notice, and even censure. Still, two things come to mind: are things all that bad in Woodbridge, and are cops all just so much evil waiting to strike?

No to both. It is at least within the realm of possibility that we these days simply know too much too quickly to digest it all properly. Woodbridge isn't a bad area at all (far from it!) to live, work and visit merely because a car has been stolen or a potential ne'er-do-well has been spotted by a local big brother (at times simply someone with nothing better to do) snooping from his window. Neither are police officers poorly trained gunslingers because the few who are get caught on someone's cell phone camera. We need a sense of perspective in almost all areas of life if we are to function well as citizens and individuals.

By all means, neighbors, keep an eye out for threats to yourself and your community and duly report the real troubles. And we should be wary of always and everywhere blindly accepting the stories put forth by police authority (or any authority for that matter). Still, we can't help but think that perhaps the feeling of unease over arguably isolated incidents is little more than a result of sensory overload. Things may not actually be so bad as all that. Indeed, they almost surely are not. We ought to bear in mind the logical fallacy of the hasty generalization.