So now we have a possibly related crisis, and once again, where else but in the US.
Minneapolis. Riots. People looting and burning down Target and am auto parts retailer? What on Earth is going on? What has any of that got to do with a police officer murdering a black civilian... Which in my humble opinion, he did.
I've actually been around riots before, and they're more complex than is often reported. From what I've heard about the one in Minneapolis, it's similar to the one I witnessed, where you had two or three main groups....the actual protesters, the vandals, and the looters. There's usually some overlap between the protesters and the vandals, as they're both there because they're angry and fed up. The difference of course is that the protesters express their anger peacefully and within the law, whereas the vandals obviously express their anger much more violently. It's not unusual for confrontations to break out between the two groups, as the protesters feel the vandals discredit and distract from their message, and the vandals push back by arguing that peaceful marches rarely accomplish change. The looters typically are just taking advantage of the chaos to get some free stuff.
But I really feel for these black communities. I've seen first hand the difference between being pulled over when I'm with my white friends, versus when I'm with my black friends. It's night and day. I've seen what it's like to live in neighborhoods where the police are aggressively in your face every day no matter what you're doing. I've seen overt racism against blacks when it comes to filling jobs and renting houses.
There's a reason this keeps happening across the US. As video has become commonplace, we've seen more and more how differently the police treat people of color, even to the point of death, yet oftentimes the police are not held accountable and nothing really changes. Eventually it all hits the boiling point again and the rioting starts. And if nothing changes yet again, you can bet your last dollar this whole thing will repeat itself.