Why No Riots Two Weeks Ago?

Last week a black man in Charlotte, North Carolina was killed by police, likely (based on police testimony) as the unfortunate outcome of a police stop where the man had a gun and refused orders to put it down.  The man was shot by a black police officer, it needs to be noted, which eliminates a presumption of the involvement of any white people in this matter.

Naturally -- and we hate to have to use the word "naturally", but it seems now to apply -- rioting people, clearly not all from Charlotte, broke windows, looted stores and generally embarrassed those protesters who had planned a peaceful (although not city-permitted) march.  Those riots have continued each night since.

So last week, as a news follow-up to the riots, Jesse Jackson was interviewed by Neil Cavuto on his Fox News show.  I provide the link here for your edification.

Now, Jesse Jackson is 74 and, although he left his native South Carolina long ago, he has for decades cultivated a mumbling accent and speech pattern that is so indistinct that it practically allows listeners to decide for themselves what he has said.  I actually believe he intends that, so that he leaves room to say later that he was misheard or misinterpreted, and that if he wanted to speak more distinctly he would have done so, and absolutely could.

And so I have to tell you that I understood about, maybe, three-quarters of what he actually said.  But you can listen to the interview, which is why I linked it, and hear things for yourself.

What I am sure that I did hear, though, amidst a fairly impassioned exchange on both parties' sides, was Jesse Jackson defending the rioters and looters, that they were motivated by a host of problems that were social and economic.  Yes, he said, that's why they were rioting.  No jobs, poverty, all those things that those nice Democrat mayors in those cities were working hard to fix.  Yeah, right.

But let me ask the good Mr. Jackson a question.

Were there not joblessness, poverty and "social injustice" (whatever that may actually mean) two weeks ago?

Where were the riots then, Jesse?

Look, there are better questions to ask, probably.  Cavuto asked a few of them, particularly where the connection was between looting and "social injustice" protesting; and how breaking windows at the store of someone who had nothing to do with any of those problems was justified.  Jackson answered none of that to anyone's satisfaction, which was itself disturbing because, in my moral code, breaking someone's store windows is never justifiable unless there's a medical emergency.

But I think my question is perfectly valid.  There is no connection between the shooting of the man there by a (black, remember) policeman and the economic condition of the black residents of greater Charlotte, NC.  Those conditions existed before the shooting and they continue today. So forgetting the fact that riots aren't any kind of solution to those issues, if you use Jackson's logic, where were the riots before?

The answer, I think, is fairly evident.  Leftists, funded by hugely wealthy scum like George Soros, are staging, or at least enhancing, those riots after unrelated incidents, in an effort to achieve their aims.  Those aims are a continuation of the existing, corrupt system that allows them to be as powerful as they are now.

They have nothing to do with the economic situation of black Americans, which only Donald Trump is proposing to try to address any differently from the failed approaches of the Democrats in power, Barack Obama absolutely included.  The Democrats don't want to fix the problem.  They need a subservient underclass voting to keep them in power.

And Jesse Jackson is no different.  When things improve for black America, no one will listen to the Jesse Jacksons of the world, and he is out of the public eye.

He can't have that.  So he has to be outrageous, and at this point it just looks silly.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton.