Baltimore
Published: Thu, 04/30/15
about you.
My first public response on the riots...
I don't do politics. Decency isn't the property
of any particular philosophy or movement. It
doesn't belong to the left, or the right or the center.
Whatever did or didn't happen to Freddie Gray
in Baltimore...to think there is anything to be
gained by rioting, looting, destroying businesses
and plunging a city into darkness...we know better.
This was an organized, synchronized, social media
engineered movement. It wasn't spontaneous.
It was by mostly young people with a sense of
entitlement far beyond what they've earned.
I don't know what prejudices they've had to
encounter, and at the moment I don't care. They
had access to technology that planned this.
They didn't go to Freddie Gray's funeral.
They didn't know him. They're undoing all the
work of Dr. Martin Luther King and every hero
that came after him.
This is a gutless, soulless excuse for cowardice.
And yes, it's easy for me to say it 300 miles
removed from the scene in front of a laptop.
But I have much more respect for someone
who uses the processes of justice already in
place and who lives in integrity to make
themselves better...than an organized descent
into hatred that's no different from that of ISIS.
I'm not moving too far off that statement,
with a couple of exceptions.
First, I wrote it on April 27, the first night of the
looting. Like most of us, my first instinct was to
be angry at the most visible element of it, which
was the looting, the violence, the disregard for
one's own community.
Then when I saw the fact that many people in
the neighborhoods went and cleaned up the
damage, it brought things a bit more into
perspective.
My sense is that high school kids (the rioters
seem to be mostly in their teens) are of the
"respond first and think later" type. I know I was!
And any sense of injustice combined with raging
hormones will get people to do things they wouldn't
ordinarily do.
So yes, it's terrible what happened. And that many
unsupervised kids out on their own is a problem
unto itself.
It also so happens that unchecked police power
combined with poverty produces a recipe for disaster.
If you're curious, Google the Zimbardo prison experiments.
I have to step back and wonder how it would feel
to constantly walk around feeling like a suspect,
simply because of my skin color.
And like it or not, that is very much the American
condition. Maybe it's everywhere.
Yes, there are opportunities for black men and
women to break through. We see it everyday.
But it is also an assault on their dignity to have
to work harder to prove something.
Some people will give into the sense of
powerlessness and rob, steal, pillage and destroy.
The strongest among the community raise
the bar. But it takes patience, desire and time.
And yes, it is politics...at its most basic level.
Not liberal or conservative. Not Democrat or
Republican.
Politics. The setting of policy and the allocation
of resources we all pay into.
I'm not going to listen to people who say the
911 operators don't send police into black
neighborhoods. And I won't hear about organized
conspiracies to keep African Americans down.
In the end it all comes down to the same thing...
Be So Good They Can't Ignore You.
No, you don't have to be ultra-talented.
Just make it bad business for the people with
money to ignore you.
If you represent market share, make people
earn your business.
If you have value to give, give it. And get
better at it all the time.
If "the man" won't let you play, start your
own entity.
It worked for Damon John. And Russell
Simmons.
And it worked for millions of others of
smart, ambitious immigrants and social
classes...of every color.
Yes, there are continuing injustices. And
a media who isn't the least bit shy about
covering them.
Use the system. Put the spotlight of shame
on the cops and others who play the game dirty.
Same goes for the housewife who's been
under her husband's thumb for thirty years.
And for the privileged rich kid who has
a dream in his or her heart but hasn't found
the courage to stand up to parents that
won't listen.
And for a father who's a wage slave to his
job...and hasn't figured out how to break
out of the box he's in.
Most won't ever break through.
The ones who do pave the way for the
next generation.
And have a damn good time doing it.
Your turn.
Much Love,
Larry