Riots are destructive, dangerous, and scary — but can lead to serious social reforms

By definition, a riot is a disturbance of peace between people by a crowd. Riots are rarely spontaneous, they usually have been thought about for a while before actually being carried out. In other words, its the effect of a culmination of underlying tension between people. It also doesn’t have to be from one event, but rather a common theme between many events that have been previously causing furry in society. The attention being drawn to these rioters is technically negative but civilians are meant to look at the cause of the riots, not what is physically being done. Its not a simple opportunity to vandalize, but they’re effects of genuine anger.

“All of these politicians that get completely overwhelmed and outraged from this level of chaos in their cities during these upheavals seem surprised. Yet … the origins of the upheaval are very much in their control.” Heather Ann Thompson raises a very important point because politicians shouldn’t be complaining if they’re position is specifically meant to listen to the people they represent. What could they possibly expect other than for people to react negatively when their thoughts aren’t heard. You can only suppress people for so long until they finally snap. One example in this article is Charlotte and Baltimore. It took a course of years before they finally rose up and fought back. Its simply just excessive anger towards police, the justice system, politicians, or anyone in charge who doesn’t want to make a difference or uses their power for selfish or wrong reasons. Specifically in Baltimore, locals complained to media (in hopes that their thoughts would be heard), has peaceful protests, and filed lawsuits. Their attempts were constantly leading to dead ends. What other way could they react that would be quick and straight to the point.