It started off in the 1960's. Imagine the first moments of civil disobedience. Imagine what Rosa Parks was feeling when she didn't give up her seat. She lived in a world that told her she was small and others are to come before her but she refused to recognize that so on one fateful day she decided not to be small. Now consider the Kent State shooting otherwise known as the May fourth Massacre in which students protesting the Cambodian Campaign. These students grew up at a time where everything was fear and war and when Nixon announced the Cambodian campaign they asked themselves "Why should I go to die for such a cause as this? It should be sorted out amongst themselves." so they decided to stage a protest. What was the reaction of authority to this move? They brought in the national guard and for some reason they thought it necessary to open fire on a college campus. They killed four protesters and injured nine others. In those moments when the students and soldiers were facing each other as those first shots were fired what could the people think? "Even if we don't go to war we will still get shot at and some of us killed. This is wrong."
Let us fast forward to now. In Missouri people are "protesting" by means of looting and wreaking havoc in the streets. Compare their plight to the ones described above. Rosa was sick of seeing such a disparity between color groups and sought to change that even if it was by such a simple act. Students in the protest at Kent State were afraid of having to go off to fight an unjust war. But these fucking people in MO think that looting and mayhem count as protest. As if they are a means of telling authority how they feel about their newfound hometown hero having been gunned down. As if by breaking into shops they will bring change to their world. And they wonder why there is martial law and a curfew in effect. If as a group they got together and rather than looting and causing destruction they simply sat en mass outside (or even inside) of the police station with the demand for real justice, whatever that may be. That would have shown authority that they will not let this slide but also show authority that they will not stoop to a level that degrades the spirit of the deceased, that they are a responsible populous and there is no reason to be shooting people willy nilly. But with the way they are acting maybe a few more people need to get shot before they get it.
