They had to tear that MF up - 29 April
Why the LA Riots were necessary and what we can learn from them.
Happy birthday, El Potente! (Today is my brother’s birthday.) Today is also the anniversary of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Sooo… Happy birthday, LA Riots?
I think they were terrifying and necessary and misunderstood. As riots often are. I also think DJ Muggs was a genius.
Demonstrations of anger
The 29 April 1992 LA Riots were an outpouring of anger when a jury returned a not guilty verdict for police officers accused of beating a black man, Rodney King. I would argue that the anger was righteous. Not just because the white officers who beat King (and the 17 others who watched) faced absolutely no punishment, but because that happened despite the fact their crime was caught on film.
The question is not whether it was right to riot. The question is how one could not.
I hear the tutting through my screen as I write that. Come on, Jonty. Be reasonable.
How can violence be righteous? I hear you ask. How can we applaud riots where property was destroyed, innocent bystanders were beaten and other minorities were targeted?
am supposed to say that the anger was righteous but the rioting was not. But I don’t think it’s that simple.
When riots (or boisterous demonstrations as I sometimes like to think of them) destroy private property, a certain type of person straight up Freaks. Out. It is never okay they say, to turn peaceful protest into violence.
This is stupid.
Not just because ‘violence’ to them could mean breaking a window at a high-end department store (which doesn’t matter), but because they refuse to see any wider context to property damage that might put it in perspective.
Christians should understand this.
If the riot is the cry of the unheard, as Rev Martin Luther King Jr said, then the concern for private property in such a riot is the squeal of the privileged. Yes, I know you’re angry about the murder of black people by police, the All Lives Matter brigade (and even some people of good conscience) say. But breaking a window is taking it too far.
I don’t think it is. I think that the only way we can think like that is if we worship order over justice or if we have experienced so little oppression that we cannot imagine how it must feel.
Tutting again.
I know, I know – if it were me losing property I would be pissed and distressed. And that is why stealing is, in fact, a sin (I think). But ignoring the context and perspective of property damage in the context of political demonstrations is not just problematic, it is collaboration with oppression. What you are effectively saying is that on the balance sheet of justice, human lives are not equal in value to private property.
Does that mean that property destruction is never wrong? Nah. But it does mean that your concern over property should be measured against your concern over what is being protested – racism, environmental destruction, slavery and the degradation of human life are simply more important than shopfronts.
But.
The harder violence
Property damage isn’t the only violence that happens in a riot, when rage takes over and mob mentality, legitimate anger and social and spiritual forces (some good, some very bad) explode in an unpredictable way. People get hurt, too. They did in the LA Riots. They will again.
Is beating an innocent person, caught up in a riot and happening to have the wrong skin colour righteous? No. I can’t see that ever being okay. And any riot of mine (raised right in the ways of decent, God-fearing melees) would not target individuals randomly. But we can understand why it happens. And how it happens. And, more importantly, we have a choice as to what (or who) we think is to blame.
Do we simply default to assuming that only the lives and bodies damaged by a riot matter? Or do the countless bodies, minds and lives broken by injustice bother us? If your heart goes out to the people injured by mobs I think you are on the right side of things. If it never goes out to those harmed in the incidents that incited the mob, what you are feeling is not empathy, it is sentimental playacting or, at best, an inability to connect the causal dots.
Talk to me about the victims of the well-intentioned crowd expressing rage. Tell me about historical antecedents and the lessons of how a thirst for justice can easily become a thirst for blood. But don’t talk to me about the reign of terror after the French (or Bolshevik) Revolution if you spare not a thought for the longer, deeper reign of terror that preceded it. If you vilify Robespierre and Lenin, but not Louis or the Cardinals, you are not objecting to carnage but to change. And that’s at best. At worst you believe some people deserve to suffer. And that is where, as a Christian, I part ways with many of my revolutionary sisters and brothers.
As a follower of Jesus, I don’t want the streets to run red with the blood of oppressors, even those who have made the poor, the victims of bigotry and the weak suffer. Or, at least, most of the time, I don’t want to want this. I don’t think we can justify killing. And at the same time, I think we need to be careful of judging those who feel driven to it.
Pragmatism and conscience
Wait! Don’t get mad! I’m not saying morality is relative and the experience of oppression relativises Christian and moral values. I’m saying it’s a bit rich to tell someone not (or how) to get angry about things you haven’t experienced.
The refusal to sin, to commit violence in the face of vicious provocation, is an exception, a goodness, a sign of restraint – not a baseline for a natural person. I think Christians should show that restraint. I am uncomfortable when those who do not show it are painted as monsters automatically. Loving our enemies is not easy and it is not natural. And judging someone for not doing so (particularly without experiencing the provocation they have endured) is prideful, verging on monstrous in itself.
But yes. Killing, torturing, injuring people, particularly innocent people, is abominable.
Which is why we must not ignore the angriest protests, riots and demonstrations. And why we must protect the right to protest as sacrosanct. If we don’t, that anger will find another conduit.
As I like to think of it: if you truly love billionaires, you should try to dismantle capitalism (or reform it so radically that it barely resembles the unjust and inequitable system it currently is). Because the have-nots will eventually go to war against the haves. And that war will be horrific.
Riots are ugly and chaotic and tend to happen when peaceful protest is ignored or stifled. And while I wish riots could be directed at only ideologically sound targets (I really do), the fact is that they spill into random, unjust violence. If our response is: well then there should be no riots, I would call that privilege not compassion. It is not pacifism to prefer one form of ongoing violence over another. And if your empathy extends only to those beaten and traumatised by a riot (but not those beaten, traumatised and killed by police nor victims of our soldiers abroad), your empathy is hollow. It is shallow. It is more than likely self love. It may be natural, but it is not particularly holy.
On a slight tangent, I think this is why I distrust the liberal instinct to distance ourselves from the God who sends plagues to free Israel from Pharaoh. A good God wouldn’t do that, they say. And I get why. But also. The squeamishness about methods seems born more of a life free of the slaver’s lash than a genuine humanitarianism. Perhaps that’s unfair. But oppressed people seem to gravitate to the Exodus story, and they don’t tend, in my experience, to attach too many caveats, even if they are committed themselves to non-violence. Finding the Exodus frogs and the Genesis flood abominable as a response to slavery and endemic abuse, speaks to me of privilege more than compassion. But I admit I may be wrong. I just know that, unrighteous as it may be, if I was part of an enslaved population I would welcome the Passover and I’d celebrate it without too many mixed feelings.
So what does this mean for us? Should we follow Jesus selectively and make our standard response to wickedness to start to make a non-lethal weapon to teach the abusers a lesson? Should the answer to the question WWJD? Always be: fuck shit up?
On pragmatic (and probably theological) grounds, no. Plus, passive resistance, peace in the face of violence, forgiveness and love are beautiful and good. I believe they are the ideal and godly obedience should strive for them.
But if, on the outside of Struggles for justice (and what you are struggling for matters), you find yourself usually siding against rioters, strikers and demonstrators, you may be a compassionate human being who values harmony and peace above all. Or you may have a deficit of compassion for the unheard and the underprivileged. You may be more concerned with maintaining order than any question of morality, justice or ethics. That’s fine, I guess. But don’t ask me to call it noble.
Neither can I side with the police when they propose to make protest even harder. Protest is essential for justice because it is the voice of the often powerless many. Limiting it must be the exception, not the rule. And we should treat with grave suspicion any attempt to crack down on the legal right to protest. We should default to suspicion of and opposition to increased powers among the police (so often themselves the cause of anger) in dealing with protest.
Kill the Bill demonstrations are happening this weekend across the UK in response to just this. If you can’t be at them, do not be silent in supporting them. These people are an example of what fighting for justice in a democracy can look like. Disruption and discomfort are a natural part of protest and the price, in a sense, of freedom. The alternative to allowing protest would be more direct. And significantly more frightening.
Learning from Rodney (if not Cube)
The Rodney King verdict was an impressively horrifying example of America’s white supremacy, and of the systemic evil at the heart of US policing. 20 years after the brutality Rodney King suffered, the foundational sin of racism in the United States has yet to face a significant reckoning. On the day that police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd, a 16-year-old black girl was killed by police in Ohio. Perhaps some progress has been made, but not enough. And what progress has been made has come at the cost of order, comfort and peace. Because sometimes the oppressed have to fight for basic respect, and sometimes that fighting gets ugly.
Or, as Ice Cube, put it in 1992: “We had to tear this motherfucker up.” (Click the link if you don’t mind strong language, some highly problematic lyrics, images of riots or the hip-hop stylings of DJ Muggs.)
If we want to avoid these kinds of scenes (and worse ones, where the privileged are dragged from their homes trying desperately to explain that they have voted Lib Dem all their lives and gave to charity) we must work for change. We must eradicate systemic injustice so that its equal and opposite reaction doesn’t wash the streets with blood. We must allow protest and public disruption as a way to give voice to legitimate anger, or we must not claim to be surprised when it finds a more direct form of expression.
Terrible things happened during those riots. The blame does not lie with the perpetrators alone. And some of what happened (to property and a sense of order) was far from terrible. It was proportionate. Mild, even. We have to get our heads around that.
At the very least we have to stop the tutting.
Thank youuuuuuu!
Yeah, baby! Other kind souls have bought me beers. Special shout out to David J (not the one from Bauhaus) for the generosity and the kind words!
Hey, wasn’t Beer Christianity once a podcast?
Alright, smartass. Yes. But I got a little sad again. And then busy. But we have recorded, I’m in the process of editing and it is genuinely a delight of an episode. It’s about football, but as a non-sports-enthusiast, I found the chat fascinating, so don’t let that derail your listening. Out soon!
Also: we’re changing our logo because we don’t just drink bad beer anymore. Enjoy the original while it lasts!
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Anyway
Well, hi. You made it to the bottom of the email. Like a champ. Did you listen to the Ice Cube song? I have such mixed feelings about it. Not just because of the homophobic language and reference to antisemitism, but because it’s So. Freaking. Violent. But I used to listen to rap that was just as violent but with waaaay less of a reason. I like it cos it’s uncomfortable and provoking. But that does make me anxious now. Obviously it does. Everything does. I got the covid jab the other day and friend, that thought process was SPECTACULAR. I may write something about it, actually. Or not. I’ve been kinda creatively paralysed recently — Big Sad and fear (And probably laziness) so if you wanted to pray for me I would dig that. Also feel free to get in touch if you’d like me to pray for you. I really will try to if you do. Although. The prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective. So who knows what mine will do?
Thanks for the shout-out, brotherman. Like the riots, I too, am terrifying and necessary and misunderstood. Excellent work on this one, once again!