One Man’s Riot

Consider the following scenarios. In Ferguson, Missouri, a young black man fights with a cop and ends up dead. In Cleveland, Ohio, cops approach a black 12- year-old with an Airsoft gun tucked in his waistband. The boy reaches for the pistol and ends up dead. In Staten Island, New York, a black man selling loose cigarettes on the street resists arrest and ends up dead. In North Charleston, South Carolina, a 50- year-old black man ends up dead after bolting from his car and allegedly attempting to take an officer’s Taser. In Baltimore, Maryland, a young black man with a switchblade in his pocket runs from the cops and ends up dead.

Each of these stories has a vital common element. Can you identify it?

If you said, “Cops all around the country are killing black men,” then you probably watched last night’s violence in Baltimore with a fair amount of sympathy for the rioters. To you, burning down your own city is a legitimate expression of rage against institutionalized racism and unrestrained police brutality. You understand why Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said she wanted to give the rioters “space” to destroy property. To you, the indignities suffered by black men at the hands of the police have gone on too long. You nod your head in something like agreement when you hear Morehouse College professor Marc Lamont Hilltell CNN host Don Lemon: “We’ve been dying in the streets for months, years, decades, centuries. I think there can be resistance to oppression.” To you, the time for resistance has finally arrived.

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