get a feeling a lot of people unconsciously believe that they genuinely could've prevented the L.A. riots simply with enough signs and messages of "please don't, i'd appreciate it"
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Even with 30+ years and hindsight, we've barely addressed the causes of the 1992 riots. LAPD and LASD are still just white supremacist gangs. They still have too much money and power. They still get away with murder.
They've had 30 years of "please don't" and it has got us nowhere.
it's a question i've posed before to 'this is what you SHOULD do' types
say you've been sent back in time to after the rodney king tape has been broadcast. it is march 1991. the LA riots will happen in april 1992. you have about a year inbetween."
in order to prevent the LA Riots you have to either, A) convince the LAPD to genuinely make amends to the black community or at least get the courts, heavily manipulated by the cops at the time, to convict, or B) make a speech so convincing it totally negates all anger.
like you think about it, of course you're not preventing the LA riots, not even with magical future knowledge of what's going to happen. how could you possibly. there's too many people involved, it's too big, and the cops have too much invested in maintaining immunity to consequences.
the ultimate effect here is people mostly spitting to the wind, and, being gracious, i think at least some of it is an - understandable - act of desperation from feeling a lack of ability to control or influence the circumstances around them.
there's the other bit to it, to all the "don't do this, don't do that" where people seem to unconsciously assume there's someone commanding all choices of how to react like a strategy game, or that everyone will of course react with perfect rational calm in a very blatant crisis point.
i think that they think that they would, of COURSE, react perfectly rationally in such a situation and not do anything that would reflect badly, or could be used for smearing propaganda. a kind of 'i am the batman of protests'.
i don't think it's conscious most of the time. but it's... heh. y'know.
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They've had 30 years of "please don't" and it has got us nowhere.
Brought to you by the same people that think Gaza can be solved by an AI picture of a Palestian kid petting an Israeli kitten.
say you've been sent back in time to after the rodney king tape has been broadcast. it is march 1991. the LA riots will happen in april 1992. you have about a year inbetween."
how would you stop the LA riots from happening?
are these realistic?
but it's still spitting into the wind.
i don't think it's conscious most of the time. but it's... heh. y'know.