I live near Baltimore, so have access to local news that is doing a WAY better job of covering the issue than CNN. As many have pointed out, that quote wasn't related to last night's rioting and was clearly taken out of context.
I also think it's important to note a huge difference between Baltimore and Ferguson. Baltimore is led primarily by African Americans. The mayor, police chief, and now General of the MD National Guard are all african american. The clergy - from all denominations - have been very active yesterday and overnight in trying to get things calmed down. I hope that means things will calm down more quickly.
This is probably the best article I've read about the whole thing:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics...in-baltimore-requires/391598/?utm_source=SFFB
Some key quotes:
"As CNN broadcast scenes of young people looting a CVS pharmacy and police cars burning in the streets, its commentators, including anchor Wolf Blitzer, criticized Baltimore officials for allowing such flagrant lawlessness to transpire. "I keep asking where are the police," he said. "They seem to be invisible." In fact, law enforcement had come under attack by high school students throwing cinder blocks, dispersed that crowd, and had officers massed at several spots, just not the particular corner where the news helicopter trained its cameras. The anchor treated truths not captured on CNN's video feeds as if they didn't exist. Americans should avoid that sort of myopia."
"It is perfectly possible to laud police heroes, lament injured police officers, and excoriate bad cops for undermining their colleagues and their community. "
"But a subset of Baltimore police officers has spent years engaged in lawbreaking every bit as flagrant as any teen jumping up and down on a squad car, however invisible it is to CNN. And their unpunished crimes have done more damage to Baltimore than Monday's riots. Justice also requires that those cops be identified and charged, but few are demanding as much because their brutality mostly goes un-televised. Powerless folks are typically the only witnesses to their thuggery. For too long, the police have gotten away with assaults and even worse. The benefit of the doubt conferred by their uniforms is no longer defensible."
And the money quote, quoted from Martin Luther King, Jr:
We have lived over these last two or three summers with agony and we have seen our cities going up in flames," Martin Luther King declared in a 1968 speech. "And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view. I'm absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt."
Yet while he felt that "we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results," he added, "it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard."
I am watching this with disgust and so are most blacks.
