Baltimore rioting is a response to inequality and injustice

We at The Advocate spent a large portion of our editorial board meeting this week discussing the recent protests and rioting in Baltimore, Maryland. These riots occurred after police on April 12 arrested a 25-year-old man, Freddie Gray, who suffered a severe spinal injury from which he died, a week after he was first taken into custody.

Six Baltimore police officers were charged with homicide on May 1 by a state prosecutor, because they did not attend to Gray’s cries for help, did not properly secure him in the police wagon, and because his original arrest was unwarranted since he broke no law: He had been accused of carrying an illegal weapon but the knife he carried was not illegal.

Specific incidents of police brutality such as this have been enough to cause uproar in the communities in which they occur – such as Ferguson, Missouri, last year – but the reasons behind rioting in general are a matter of debate.

Normally in our editorial discussions we come to a consensus, but this is one of those discourses that divided us in thought.

Namely: Does the root of unrest among American minority populations, as witnessed in Baltimore and elsewhere, mostly lie in their socio-economic status, or is there a genuine crisis of racial profiling by police?

While divided, we think it proper to consider both serious propositions.

Anyone who thinks racism is not an issue anymore is most likely a privileged, middle-class white person – as are the majority of us on this year’s Advocate staff.

When white people watch the news and see the tears and anguish of black people burning up their own city, we feel a disconnect: Is it even possible for a cop to use unnecessary, unjustified force upon a person, solely based on the color of their skin?

To some of us, it doesn’t seem so. White folks can walk pretty comfortably in their own skin without the need to check over their shoulder. They don’t have to fear being watched or treated more harshly by police, based on potentially dangerous preconceptions.

When a white child is having “the talk” with a parent, a.k.a. the birds and the bees, they are unaware of the talk that many black peers are having with their own parents. Which consists of, “Address the officer with ‘Sir’; always keep your hands visible; watch your language; do not argue with the officer; do as you’re told; ask the police for permission if you need to reach for something; do not run;” and it goes on, and on, and on. These talks imply something very frightening – that someone, especially if they are black, must be subordinate to the police. They must be submissive and controlled.

In Even in our own Oregon backyard, by percentage, African Americans are confronted by police at a far greater rate than are Caucasians. Graphics based on a Portland Police Bureau that display this information from the Portland Police Bureau report can be seen in the OregonLive.com article by clicking on this link: http://www.oregonlive.com/data/2014/12/charting_the_racial_breakdown.html.

The last thing our society needs is a police force to fear, and not one to feel protected by. An ugly reality, we believe, is that minorities fear police the most, and vice-versa. The former fear that they will be beaten, charged, or killed because they are projected as “the enemy,” rather than citizens to protect and serve.

Propublica, an investigative news source, has inspected several cases– besides that of Michael Brown, the teen shot in Ferguson – where black males were killed without justification. John Crawford III was killed for hanging onto a display BB gun while talking on the phone in a WalMart store. Eric Garner was brought down by a New York City officer with a choke-hold. He constantly repeated: “I can’t breath,” but several officers did not relent. In Cleveland, police hastily shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice, a boy waving an airsoft gun in a park, but mistakingly reported as brandishing a semi-automatic pistol.

And the list goes on.

Video evidence proves that we have a police brutality crisis. Just because it isn’t as prevalent in one community, doesn’t mean it isn’t prevalent in another. If an individual has not experienced the double standards that minorities often face, it does not take away from the reality those individuals do face.

According to the New York Times, police are evaluating new ways to use force. They recognize the need for more nonlethal tactics in confrontations such as those described above.

However: Instead of racial inequality being the main fuel for civil unrest – and for outright rioting – some on The Advocate staff suggest that income inequality is a deeper root cause.

Poverty-stricken areas typically have a higher concentration of criminal activity. The lack of resources and education play a factor in people going the atypical, illicit route to make ends meet. They resort to gang activity, prostitution, and the selling of illegal drugs – all actions that draw close attention by law enforcement. Census.gov suggests that the occurrence of more crime within impoverished communities is because people in poor communities are clustered and not evenly settled throughout a broader region. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty organization, though white children overall make up one-third of America’s poor, each minority group has a higher percentage of its own children living in poverty, than do whites. And, the Economic Policy Institute released data showing that as of 2013, 45 percent of African-Americans are concentrated into impoverished communities.

In this respect, we don’t believe we can fairly eliminate either race or socio-economics as legitimate causes, or triggers, to a community’s reaction to unjust treatment.

The difference in opinion lies in which factor more directly influences police brutality – racial inequality, or income inequality – but either way, it’s inequality.

Rioting would not be our first choice of protest. The majority of angry people Baltimore did, and continue to, speak out in peaceful terms. Nonetheless, we find that both racial discrimination and socio-economics need to be analyzed and neither is something we can easily dismiss.