At what point do we need to consider that the increasing protest after death at the hand of police is not "rioting", but the beginning of revolution? The revolution is misdirected against police, but the uprising is rightly aimed at a system that is using police as a tool of institutional racism.
Good men and women in blue are being asked to pacify a populous that has been devastated by corporate powers shipping jobs overseas, suppressing and depressing wages, silencing collective bargaining and worker organization, and stealing retirement funds. That the hurt is greatest among African Americans is no coincidence, because racism is a division deliberately fostered in media and law by the powerful, with the intent to divide and weaken the larger population. Set factions of us against each other and we will never become the powerful team of citizens that could bring about a change, could demand and create justice.
The violence and property damage in Baltimore is horrid, but it is far from the first act of violence committed in that city. The fatal brutality committed against Freddy Gray was not the first aggression in the conflict, either. The greed that ripped the economic life out of that city started years - even decades - ago, and that was the first act of war.
When police in riot gear storm the mansions of the robber barons who shipped jobs overseas, who hide the profits of American labor in offshore tax havens, who buy candidates that will move wealth from the public to the private sectors...when the response to theft is at least as great when a retirement fund is stolen as it is when a TV is taken from a looted store...then people can again have faith in both law and law enforcement.
I am a lifelong pacifist, and I abhor the violence I see from Baltimore and other cities on CNN. I do not believe in war as a solution for any social problem. I even waive any notion that I would exercise my right to lethal self defense, a personal choice that I make as a consequence of believing that even my attacker's life matters as much as mine.
But I know war will come when the injustice is too long and too great and too hard to bear. When "law and order" is indistinguishable from oppression, when citizens are treated like subjects, and when our protectors - the police - are equipped and trained to be our enemies, these are acts of violence. Violated people will retaliate, right or wrong.
Yes, there are peaceful options in the traditions of MLK and Gandhi, but in their eras there was a larger population that could feel shame for the violence committed by police and soldiers in their name. Today, the narrative and the media to spread it is owned by the shameless. We are told that anyone who resists is a thug, anyone who is brutalized must have deserved it, and that police who use brutality are simply doing a difficult job. They are, but it is not ultimately the citizenry that makes their job difficult, it is the system of hopelessness and desperation inflicted by an untouchable class that creates a hostile environment for those who would prefer to protect and serve rather that oppress and silent.
I pray for peace in Baltimore. I fervently pray for the lives and health of the police, National Guard, and the citizenry of all professions, all races, and all walks of life.
I also know that the only way to protect and preserve those lives in the long run is to create, established, and practice justice. In the absence of a return to true justice and opportunity for all, this will be a "long, hot summer." I grieve, and I fear we are only seeing the beginning.