On rioting...

When I was a young undergraduate I took an introductory class to Psychology.  My professor was an interesting researcher who worked so much with monkeys that he walked a little like one.  I always remember him talking about mob mentality and how fascinated he was with it because of how difficult it was to study.  A scientist cannot morally stage a riot to study people’s brain to determine how quickly they decide to join in rioting or looting. He said it is hard to predict when and where it will happen.  

This was in the early nineties, and I am certain now that this conversation in class must have come about after the Rodney King Riots.  If you are a Gen Xer like I am, it is hard to forget it.  Wikipedia says 63 people died in those riots.  It was the first time in my life that the public consciousness was so aware of the police being out of control.  It is also the start of what we now know is a video age, now the digital age, where civilians owned or carried cameras and therefore were empowered to show their realities.

But I disagree that it is hard to predict a mob.  I agree that you get little notice of the mob coming, but you can feel that in the air.  I know because I grew up in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, where people took for granted that whenever there was a long weekend we would see a mob form and police brutality ensue.

In my twenty plus years living outside of Puerto Rico I have frequently described Cabo Rojo as a sleepy beach town.  It is on the southwest tip of the island, kind of like California in the US.  Puerto Rico is a small place, and whenever there was a long weekend, such as Memorial Day or Labor Day people would come from all over the island to our little town to enjoy the beaches.  In the Boqueron township there is still street parties every night of a long weekend.  It is the place to be when you are college-aged.  Lots of music, alcohol, and young people crammed together in a small plaza having a good time.  But inevitably there would be trouble.  Someone would start a fight and others would start throwing bottles.  In the pushing and shoving, people would get trampled.  The riot police were always scheduled to be there, because we all knew what was going to happen. 

I cannot tell you how many times I witnessed a cop beating people indiscriminately to make the crowd disperse.  Sometimes the fight started on the east side, the cops were swinging their sticks on the west side of the plaza, because that is where they were standing, and it was more convenient than chasing down the instigators.    My friends and I all remember that time and have stories of running away from the cops for the crime of being young and just standing next to the wrong person. Of course the trouble makers should be told to leave, perhaps made to leave by force.  But that was not what happened.  Rather, it was open season.  And the police knew that the weekend would come and the kids would go to the plaza and it was only a matter of time before they started swinging their clubs.  

I could recount many detailed stories about this time.  But what’s more important is that people understand our perspective.  We did not view the cops as being there to protect us. How could we? We saw them as just waiting for the chance to start hitting people.  Anyone. It was a scheduled abuse of power and the trick for us kids was to go, have a good time, and leave before we got hit by a cop.  There were times when a fight would break out, the cops would beat everyone around them, things would calm down, and then we continued partying!  Maybe an hour later there would be another fight, more beatings, and so on and so forth.  

We hated the cops. To this day, when I see police in riot gear I think about those cops standing together on one corner of the plaza just waiting for a reason to strike. Miraculously no one died that I know of.  I can’t help but wonder what I would be feeling if we had video cameras and taped this violence every time it happened.  How I would feel if someone had died. Perhaps someone that looked like my brother.

Empathy is lacking all around us.  On social media, on the news we keep hearing people discussing whether or not the police were right or wrong.  Whether or not they should be charged with a crime.  Whether the rioters have a right to protest violently. I can’t help but be on the side of those rioting.  At a rational level I know that rioting and looting is immoral and illegal.  I am a business owner and I imagine if it were my business being burned to the ground, I would be upset. 

But what about George Floyd? His family? Eric Gardner, Travon Martin, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile…and those are just the few I remember off the top of my head.  #saytheirnames

I am an empath and cry easily, like during Star War movies.  So I realize that I am perhaps unusually emotional about this.  But I remember saying the day after 9/11 - “Poor Muslims. They will all be judged by this for a generation. Thank God the hijackers weren’t Latin.”  I knew the day after that, American Muslims and anyone that looks like them would be treated as terrorists.  My heart broke for them. Empathy.  Why do so many people lack it? Had I been watching videos of people who looked like my brothers and father, sons and neighbors being killed by those whose job it is to protect them…I would probably riot, too. Wouldn’t you?  

I hate to have to resort to movies again, but I remember the moment in “A Time to Kill” when Matthew McConaughey describes the victimization of the little girl.  Then he chokes back his tears and says “Now picture she is white.”  That is how I feel right now.  I hate that that is what it takes to get people to understand the meaning of empathy. But if you are reading this and you are white, try to imagine how you would feel if this was happening to people who looked like you?  

I am not black so I won’t pretend to understand what they are going through right now.  But I am an empath, and I do have African blood in me.  So I must say that when I heard a black woman on the news say “We feel like we are being hunted”, it hurt my heart and made me cry.  When you see that video and how that man was treated like an animal.  Four cops.  And nobody stopped it. No one thought it was excessive.  They carried on as if it were business as usual. Because it is. Business as usual for them.

I know the looting is wrong. But I have to say if the people dying at the hands of the cops looked like my kids, my family, those closest to me…you damn right I would want to burn the motherfucking police station down!  All of it!  And you would too.  And if you sit down and think about it - I mean really think about it -  you would agree.  You would not be quietly sitting on your couch judging those on TV burning down their community.  Because that community is just a façade when you do not feel safe.  Who gives a shit about cars and buildings when you feel there is no rule of law?  There is no rule of law when there is no protection for those who look like you.  There is no rule of law if the law does not apply to those paid to enforce it.  None.  

I wish, I really wish, that as a country we were connected enough to see this as an affront against all of us, because it is. I wish that regardless of your race you too felt like you were being hunted.  The reality is that if a police officer can kill you in broad daylight, with other officers looking on, and then go home to their family, then the rioters are absolutely right. We have no rule of law and pretending we do just makes it worse.  I wish it did not take riots and looting to wake people up. I wish the news reported “Another civilian was killed by a police officer today and sparked outrage throughout America.” Instead what we hear is how the media takes advantage, or how burning down a business makes no sense. How those people are acting like savages.  Well, America you get what you put out. How can you expect people to react peacefully to something so violent?

The mob mentality is hard to study and predict my professor said.  Well it happened in 2020 as it happened in 1992 after Rodney King and many times in between, and it will continue to happen until something changes.  How many have to die before we stop sitting in judgement? How many cities need to burn before as a society we stop and look at what got them to that place of violence?  When will America take responsibility for its violent past and present? When will we stop blaming the victims for violently reacting to America’s violent actions?