[Itse]

Sorry for taking long to answer, not sure if anyone's interested with pages and pages of new stuff, but here goes anyway.

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Clearly the police force. But that doesn't make the looting right, which I think you ultimately conclude as well.

I do think this was inevitable, as I said earlier. But again, it's still not something that should be celebrated or excused, as some are doing.

This isn't how proximate cause works, so I disagree. If you set a building on fire and loot a storefront because you're angry about how the local police treat black suspects, it's not the police's fault for upsetting you. You're committing a crime. The police's criminal behaviour and institutional failings are their fault, your criminal behaviour is yours. There are many reasons to be justifiably angry, but you do not get to go downtown and break a bunch of windows and then claim it was the fault of the people who made you angry in the first place. That's on you.

Individual responsibility is always with the individual, but individual and collective responsibility are not mutually exclusive. So basically what you said goes both ways. Just because an individual rioter is responsible for their individual actions doesn't absolve the police from being collectively responsible for the situation as a whole.

The point I'm making is that in my personal opinion, the question of individual responsibility, or "what should we think about the looters and rioters" isn't a question that can, in this situation, be answered in a collective sense. The protesters, rioters and looters are not an organized collective unit. They're a group of individuals who are each reacting to the situation in their own way. Some are shouting slogans, some are throwing stones, some are looting. Nobody organized the looting and rioting (at least as far as anyone knows), and none of them have control over the actions of others. One protester is generally speaking not responsible for the actions of anyone other than themselves (and maybe some of their friends). I don't expect a civilian to get in the way when someone starts acting violently and breaking things. It's great if they do, but in most situations it's not fair to expect it.

You would have to take an individual rioter, look at what exactly they did, insert the necessary context into the picture (starting from who that person is) and then pass moral judgment if you so desire. BTW I'm with you in the sense that I don't agree with the people who claim that rioting was strictly necessary, nor do I agree that rioters should be cheered on as people who are doing something necessary. Although I'll get back to this.

IMO another reason why these types protests tend to dissolve into violence is that they are poorly organized and lack goals/mechanisms that would vent the frustration of the crowd in a more constructive manner. This isn't anyone's fault as such, you can't blame anyone for not being a better organizer, but it is a problem in general. (I think there's an interesting speculation to be had on why protests in the US seems generally to be less organized than their European counterparts, but that is another discussion completely.)

(That said, a big reason the protests around racialized issues often dissolve into violence because the US police is so f***ing racist and very often actively work to escalate the situation so they get to bash some heads. It's very hard to organize against deliberate police provocations.)

To get back on topic, I can't find it in me to pass moral judgment on people I don't really know, individually or even as a collective really, especially in a situation where I am too aware that I can't truly relate to their situation. (Legal judgment is something I refuse to do because I'm not part of the US legal system. I'm also of the opinion that moral and legal judgment can go opposite ways. It can be necessary for something to be legally wrong even when it's morally right or at least excusable.)

We'll leave aside the fact that I question if many of these guys are doing what they're doing exclusively out of anger at systemic racism, because I think many of them are just young dudes who are taking the opportunity to break some things and get some free stuff. If they can justify it to themselves as being part of "fighting back against the system", more the better.

While I agree, I'm also of the opinion that it probably not possible to draw a clear line between "a person venting his anger at a system he feels is fundamentally unfair/broken/rigged" and "a young dude who really feels like breaking stuff would be fun". The people, typically young men, who have trouble even understanding what it is that makes them want to burn down a store are likely the kinds of people who are like that because of deep systematic problems in the country he lives in.

I agree. However, in at least some of these instances, I think it's probably impossible to prevent this without taking very aggressive steps that I suspect we both would prefer they not take. If the alternative leads to more people getting injured or killed by police in attempting to quell the rioting, the rioting is pretty clearly the lesser evil.

While you're absolutely right, to me this is the ultimate condemnation of the police. When the police has through decades of violent and/or racist behavior put themselves in a position where they are unable to do their job because they are so hated and/or feared by a portion of the population, you can't really excuse them for not being able to do their job.

This isn't what happened, though. The officers were almost immediately suspended, and shortly afterwards, fired. The mayor's office immediately decried the abuse and called for charges. Those charges were laid, again, quite quickly. The normal time it takes for these processes to take place were abridged here.

Again, I think it's revisionist history to suggest that this was a case where the response from those in power was half-measures, it was actually surprising how hard they came down on the officers involved, given how these things have gone in the recent past. I don't really see how you could expect a better process.

IDK, I think we were reading different messages here, and reading them differently... But. I was thinking whether I can defend my position my giving an example of what kind of realistic behavior might have prevented the protests, and honestly I couldn't really think of it.

A major issue here though is the systematic problem. An officer in the line of duty is protected by law in the US to such an extent that it's borderline impossible to treat these situations with the gravity they deserve. Someone like the mayor really can't do much on a short notice, and the charges you can usually make legally stick just aren't what the public would consider a proportional punishment.

That said, since the police have themselves lobbied for the laws to be that way, it's still kind of their fault for taking part in building a system where there's just not enough accountability.

As I said earlier, I think this is a brilliant strategy, but I also think it's naive to suggest that if every police force tried this, it would work in every case and no rioting or looting would have happened.

You are of course right. Again though, I would suggest that it very likely works in places where the police behave more like they should on an everyday basis, have better public relations to begin with and as a result have a community where such a riot is a lot less likely to break out.

I still think it's important to talk about, just as a reminder that there is no fundamental reason why in the US the relationship between the police and the public should be so terrible.

(It's also kind of unfortunate that we have to talk of the US in general here even though there are just massive differences from state to state and city to city.)

I agree with this too. My whole thing was not that it's not understandable, or that it's surprising that it's happening. I'm not the least bit surprised. My objection is to people suggesting that it's excusable, or unimportant, or even laudable (I have read a bunch of cheerleading, though not so much in this thread), or that even being interested in it at all somehow suggests that you're trying to distract from the central issue about police overreach and brutality. It is, as you say, not okay, it's fairly harmful to people who don't deserve it, and it's not ultimately productive.

I agree with that last part maybe like 50%.

As many have IMO correctly pointed out, rioting unfortunately does bring attention in a way that peaceful protests just don't. I think it has helped to bring out the true disgustingly violent colors of many police forces in the US right now, in a way that just hasn't been the case before. Not by design, but it still happened. A month ago many people here would simply have not believed that this is really what some police forces in the US have devolved into.

The rioting has helped in part in creating what right now seems likely to be a memorable moment in US history that will affect public perception for a long time, even if nothing concrete comes out of it right now.

On top of that. Being on the right side of the issue is still right, even if you end up on the losing side. To me it's a bit cheap to say rioting doesn't help, when nothing else has so far helped.

Or to put it another way, there's logically no fair criteria to judge whether or not rioting is more or less effective than peaceful protesting in this particular situation. Just because you lost doesn't prove that you didn't use the most effective method available to you.

EDIT:
I need to add that the police on the other hand IMO need to be judged primarily on a collective basis, because it's the duty of every individual police to guard the public and to help create a livable community with a functioning police force. It's literally part of their job to protect the population from corrupt, racist and violent policing.

Even if you're not out there bashing heads and shooting rubber bullets at will, letting your colleague behave like that without trying to arrest them is dereliction of duty. When your colleagues are behaving like thugs, either you find a moral spine and step up against them, or you're morally just as guilty.

If you don't think that's fair, you shouldn't be a cop.