Looting. Celebration or Protest?
Name the team. They win the NBA Championship.
Police cars are overturned and set ablaze. Stores are broken into and looted.
Yet when an unarmed man appears to be wrongfully shot and subsequently dies, as in Ferguson MO, police cars are overturned and set ablaze. Stores are broken into and looted.
It tasks the imagination to connect these diametrically opposite emotional events to these nearly identical reactions. One event exudes elation. Our team has won the championship. The other event draws anger, sadness, and calls for facts and explanation. But the lawless reaction is the same. Why?
There is only one apparent answer. Until a further explanation is offered, or a better one, it appears that whenever an “excuse” to break the law is presented, such as a championship or an apparent wrongful death, a certain ilk will be sure to break it. Sadly, it has become accepted practice under either excuse.
This is not to pass judgment on the shooting in Ferguson, MO. The facts are not registered as of now. But, the quick start to lawlessness in this matter is identical to celebration in another instance. The looting and lawlessness has nothing to do with either. The events, and apparently any event of a certain magnitude, encourages a certain type of person to dismiss any moral duty to behave properly and obey the law.
It would be an interesting question for Mr. Sharpton. Why is that Al?
James Longstreet