Baltimore Is Burning

So as I type this there is rioting in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray, a black man whose spine was broken while in the custody of police, most if not all of whom were white.  That follows ... well, Ferguson started all of this, and there probably is New York City, maybe Ohio, possibly South Carolina, etc.  I have just brought up online the audio feed of the Baltimore Police Department.  It's very interesting to eavesdrop on these police scanners, especially when you're listening to the PDs of the college town whose team just lost.  So it seems kind of terrible to be curious about how law enforcement is answering what appears to be a second night of a full-blown riot.

But I am blown away by something else: A greater, louder chorus that, I must say, understands and even endorses the riots.  Mind you, it appears as though the vast majority of writers and self-appointed experts see the #BaltimoreRiots as self-defeating violence in the face of institutional racism.  Two towering literary figures that no a lot more about the state of race relations in America than I will ever know, David Simon and Charlie Pierce, are denouncing the looting and unrest.  But it appears as though the cavalcade of nihilistic protest that began with the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. over the summer and has continued with story after story of unarmed black men being shot to death at the hands of white police officers has convinced some that there is something, very, very wrong with those to whom we hand over law-and-order responsibilities.

I hear the sympathy towards the rioting not just in the cacophonous clown show that is Twitter.  Saw a friend on Facebook post an image of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a quote including a line I am seeing more and more in memes in reaction to the riots: "A riot is the language of the unheard."  Most surprising of all, John Angelos, Executive Vice President of the Baltimore Orioles and son of the Owner of the franchise, has come out firmly in support of the protesters/rioters, or at least pointed out (in a series of tweets stitched together here and at other websites) that the burning around his city is the result of years of income inequality, neglect by city officials and the oppression of public trusts that were meant to salve the needs of the poor.  This is a guy who works for the team directly affected by the riots: Fans at Sunday's game were told to stay in Camden Yards for their safety as the protests swirled just outside the stadium, and Monday's game was cancelled in preparation for more burning.  A public figure representing one of the pillars of the community -- a stable force reflecting what is supposed to be the best of Baltimore -- shining a light on its dark side and siding with the oppressed against the other stable forces of the community has to resonate deeply, somehow.

I am, with most things, torn.  It makes no sense to me for a community to erupt in anger and then destroy itself.  Then again, anger is not supposed to be rational.  Never has been.  And to be disrespected day after day, year after year by those who are supposed to help you, to the point where (assuming the visceral assumptions turn into fact in the case of Freddie Gray) what was once thought to be impossible turns to unspeakable reality -- well, that's the last straw, and to quote Chris Rock, I understand.

This is the revenge for having your dream deferred.  It has, in fact, exploded.  For about the past year, all across the country, the dream deferred has exploded.