Positional asphyxiation, page-4

It is so utterly tragic to be listening to this again so many years latter and to see how far away from realising his dream the US is. Thank you for the reminder. Unless you are black you cannot actually know their experience. you only know your own privilege. You do not know how frightened you can be if you walk through a white area, if you marry a white person, if you try to get ahead. You do not know how hard it is to get ahead and all the institutional barriers.

so while I agree with the opening post that the riots seem at first to be an extreme response - I don't like them, and they can reinforce the negativity towards blacks, they represents centuries of frustration and discrimination but they also represent the permission that exists within institutions to treat non whites this way. the policeman concerned appears to have had a history of behavior unbecoming with previous complaints lodged against him.

this sort of thing happens far too often. not long ago there was a story of a man who was released from prison after serving 36 years in prison. reading the case background it is another example of a system that is broken. he was freed finally because the evidence was unequivocally clear - he didn't do it. yet that evidence was withheld from everyone by the police and prosecution. this happens too often in the US and blacks are the ones most frequently on the receiving end. Is it any wonder that the aftermath is occurring


as you say - a riot is the language of the unheard.

as long as America postpones justice we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.

on that front it is not only america that might take note.