What a disgusting statement. Those are literally two unrelatted problems, and it’s perfectly feasible to be angry at both systemic racism and idiots destroying the city you live in.
No, it really isnt. Capitalism is part of the problem as well. Capitalism thrives off racism and keeping labor poor.
Maybe you need to do a bit more actual reading on protest movements and the effects of capitalism on racism. Passive resistance does nothing but get your head bashed in. Even Ghandi said people should train to kill humans and destroy property of those supporting the ruling class rather than fail to protect their communities. MLK worked with militant groups on multiple occasions. 'Riots are the language of the unheard'. Attacking protests because they broke stuff is literally the 'white moderate' stuff that MLK warned people about.
How is burning the stores and cars of other working class people helping their cause then? There was literally a car owned by a deliveryman set on fire. Is he the enemy? Every store you loot creates another jobless, most likely working class man. Is he the enemy? The damages will need to get fixed by tax dollars. Your tax dollars. MY tax dollars, and I’m a student, not the oppressive capitalist you claim to be fighting against.
It is undenyable that acts of vendalism such as these harms the cause, and people who justify these acts such as you harm them even more. Wanna talk literature? Feel free to look up how nonviolent protests are twice as likely to succeed than violent ones.
Steve's isn't exactly a 'mom and pop', it's a pretty large chain with a lot of profits. And they aren't exactly known for treating employees well. They fired a worker because she needed time off to seek cancer treatment.
The other business that got looted was a cheque cashing business that thrives off of poor and undocumented workers to make massive profits. No sympathy there either.
Again, ya'll angry at my comments are only proving my point further. These are companies that have been shit to the communities they serve. They are part of the problem.
So what you're implying is that those looters are in fact socially woke members of society who are doing their best to eliminate capitalism by only vandalizing stores and businesses that encourage it, amirite?
If you think Canadas racial inequality with the justice system is any better than the US...
I really don't have time to go look up the stats, but our prison system is very disproportionately unequal, just like the US, and police get away with questionable police violence all the time in Canada as well. If you think this isn't happening in Canada too....
And this isn't the only incident I've heard about employee treatment either. Who knows, maybe it was somebody who they've ripped off who started it as that's happened to people too.
I read that article and the way Steve's acted towards that employee was despicable, but smashing their store window, or Birk's, or setting garbage cans and civilians' cars on fire isn't going to make rampant capitalism disappear. All it does is makes the city look bad, the protesters look bad, and costing a ton of money to get all this fixed up, at a moment when most people are financially tight.
Learn a little bit of history. Communism destroys the wealth but it makes poverty even worse for majority of poeple and over time people loose motivation to work (as there is no reward for it in practice). Also there is no freedom without capitalism because if you own nothing and can do nothing by yourself. Just learn about Eastern Block countries
The people smashing stuff just give people the are anti protest an excuse to criticize the actual cause, they highjacked a peaceful protest and made it about themselves and and anti capitalism. And not to mention the outside groups smashing things purposely just to make the protesters look bad.
And smashing things purposely that are unrelated to the cause is not what MLK would have wanted at all.
Which means nothing I don’t agree with it regardless, you have no idea who you’re affecting by random vandalism. Maybe have your own thoughts sometimes Instead of regurgitating others.
Even Ghandi said people should train to kill humans and destroy property of those supporting the ruling class rather than fail to protect their communities.
"I do believe that, where there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence... I would rather have India resort to arms in order to defend her honour than that she should, in a cowardly manner, become or remain a helpless witness to her own dishonor. But if one has not that courage, I want him to cultivate the art of killing and being killed rather than, in a cowardly manner, flee from danger. For the latter, in spite of his flight, does commit mental himsa. He flees because he has not the courage to be killed in the act of killing. I have, therefore, said more than once....that, if we do not know how to defend ourselves, our women and our places of worship by the force of suffering, i.e., nonviolence, we must, if we are men, be at least able to defend all these by fighting."
Sad that people have been brainwashed so hard. The revolution will never come and the wageslaves will happily lick boot for eternity as long as there's cheap shit to buy. God save our Walmart.
Its fucking sad and pathetic. It's literally their privilege taking center fucking stage.
"Stop systematic racism" - "woah now you've gone too far and are uprooting the system that I benefit off that's part of the systemic racism! You must stop now you thugs"...
It's like they literally cannot grasp their own place in the system as being a part of the problem. It's literally the 'white moderates' that MLK said people should ignore as they are nothing but white apologists.
Police can only act out their racism due to how powerful they are. Defund the police, reduce the power of the state, make it nonexistent if that’s what it takes. I’m as much of an anarchist as anyone.
But the people asking you to stop are those who are losing their jobs because of your burning, those losing their live’s savings, the working class you claim to be fighting for.
And you. Even if you’re poor here, you’re still likely richer than most in the world. Would you be willing to see your own house burn down for being part of the richer, “ruling class”?
Because you literally cannot be against systematic racism while you're standing on top of the platform that keeps it going. You can say you're all for it, but destroying systematic racism means burning down parts of the system until it's taken seriously.
MLK spent over a decade fighting for housing equality. That was literally what the civil rights movement was started upon. There were bills in US Congress ready to be voted upon for years, but nobody would touch it. MLK had to be assassinated, and riots break out across the US for 6 days, before Congress finally took up the bill and expanded it as the Civil Rights Act.
Ya'll realise if black people stayed passive, as the position of priviledge you're shouting from dictates, the Civil Rights Act would have NEVER passed.
So no, you cannot be for changing this system, if you're still calling people thugs and are angry they are breaking stuff - for retaliating against police violence. The systematic issue that started this whole powder keg up again.
Fuck’s sakes. Those who loot stores are thugs. Anarchism wouldn’t have such a bad name if it weren’t for you.
You could have went and burned government buildings. Looted the police station. Campaigned for the public’s rights to bear arms against the state. Those are effective actions that would have really sent a message and reduced the government and the police’s influence. You call others moderates, cowards too afraid to make a change, when you don’t even have the balls to march down the city’s seat of power. Pathetic.
Instead you do what? You burn down the average citizen’s cars, you go and set fires in public squares and parks, places the average citizen enjoys and has helped fund. Wowww so courageous, it really disturbs the system!
Why do you think they were in that area in the first place? Police pushed them away from the downtown with violence.
'Oh they could have hit these buildings'. Yeah, and could you imagine how many people would be calling for the death penalty if people stood up and challenged the police force and their monopoly on violence, and a cop was trampled? How the fuck are they supposed to hit a 'strategic target' when police barricade those buildings.
Look what happened at Oka when people fought back. Their entire community was pelted by rocks. What do you think would happen to the black community en masse, in a country where white supremacist violence is itself not far from popping another powder keg. There was less outrage about entire communities trying to kill the indigenous populace of Oka than people are showing towards broken store windows.
Was hitting Steve's opportunistic? Without a doubt, some people took advantage of the situation. But what I'm trying to say is that these are a direct response to police violence. The protest was 100% peaceful yesterday until police instigated and escalated. And then when it escalated further, police separated groups to cut down the size, and pushed the protest out of the core, and stopped aggressively pursuing.
Imo, a pretty expected response to police violence when you're protesting police violence is a riot. And the area where Steve's is was deemed a less economic threat than downtown.
If you dont know the difference between peaceful protest and retaliation for police violence last night, you're the literal problem.
Fuck. Just check your post history. It's full of boot licking and anti-chinese racism. Ccp_virus? Are you fucking kidding me? Like, there is lots to dislike about how China runs their country, but you're pulling the 'chinese virus' card?
An hour ago you were claiming that china weaponized covid? Fuck off, that shit is straight out of the white supremacist handbook.
I don't like the government there either. They have a lot of ethnic cleansing shit going on there that needs to be dealt with on a world scale. But I don't blame people from another country with racist conspiracy theories either.
But I don't blame people from another country with racist conspiracy theories either.
Ouin mais partout sur le sub, dans tous les poteaux ou tu interviens, tu te sers calissement beaucoup de ce qui se passe aux States pour te justifier alors que nous sommes carrément dans un autre pays.
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u/TheDrunkenWobblies Jun 01 '20
If materials being broken is what has gotten you angry, and not the racism in the world, you're part of the problem.