Searching for the causes of the Baltimore riots
- By Mitchell Blatt
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E-mail China.org.cn, May 5, 2015
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People are arrested by police at the end of a day of protests in the Sandtown neighborhood where Freddie Gray was arrested on May 2, 2015 in Baltimore, Maryland. [Xinhua photo] |
After these events, the government should be on notice. If a few of the officers are found not guilty, Baltimore can't say they weren't warned. As the L.A. riots were incited by the same thing, as were riots in Ferguson after the officer involved in the killing of Michael Brown wasn't indicted, in a case that the U.S. Department of Justice said there was insufficient evidence for which to indict him. They should be prepared for contingencies in advance.
In each of these cases, the victim was black, but this is hardly a white vs. black issue, despite simplistic framing by some media outlets. Baltimore Police Commissioner Anthony Batts, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, and President of Baltimore City Council Bernard Young are all black. Three of the six arresting officers are black, including the one who has been charged with second-degree depraved heart murder. The targets of the arson are also diverse.
Violence against immigrants, stemming from misguided economic grievances, is an all too sad truth in many countries. In South Africa, for example, people sometimes attack immigrants from other African or Middle Eastern countries. In 2008, two immigrants were killed and 40 injured in an attack on migrants from Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. A thousand more were left homeless due to arson in Pretoria.
Chinese are the victims of this violence in some countries where they are prosperous minorities. In May 1998, ethnic Indonesians looted and burned ethnic Chinese shops in riots that killed over 1,000 people. In Xinjiang in 2009, a number of Han Chinese-owned stores were attacked by Uygur extremists.
The demographic details in each country are different, but the causes of resentment are universal. Spike Lee summarized it in his 1989 film "Do The Right Thing." The characters make fun of a Korean immigrant character who took the initiative to open a small grocery store in a run down building in the neighborhood.
At the end of the movie, they spare his store after he defends it with a broom. But many more immigrant entrepreneurs have not been so lucky.
So while it is important to charge officers for police brutality where it exists, we should separate the issue and the violence as two distinct things. One doesn't solve the other. We must not feel resentment toward those who took the initiative and developed a community and made money. Anywhere you find the toxic combination of prejudice, greed and bitterness you will find the seeds of violence.
The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit: http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/MitchellBlatt.htm
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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