City On Fire - Reasons and Demands

When the protests began in Baltimore a week ago, the reason for the protest seemed pretty straight-forward. The crowd had gathered to seek justice for Freddie Gray. They wanted the six police officers involved with the Gray arrest criminally charged for his death. Obviously, there were differing opinions on all of this, but at least the basic reason for the protest seemed pretty clear.

But as things progressed over the past week, several other so-called reasons for the unrest have been introduced. We're now hearing about things like disenfranchised youth, white privilege, inadequate school funding, lack of community centers and the war on drugs (just to name a few). It's starting to remind of the pork-barrel spending that goes on in Congress. This is where someone introduces a bill. But in order to get the bill passed, every other Congressman has to get a piece of the "pork". In the case of the protests, the indictment of the six BCPD officers was the original goal. Mission accomplished. However, while the national spotlight remains on Baltimore, the protesters are now using it as a platform to make other demands.

While I'm not opposed to a sensible, civil dialogue on the concerns, I don't like the reckless way that it's being introduced. I get the sense of a "give us what we want or else" mentality. The protesters and rioters already believe (and rightly so) that they had a huge impact on the quick decision to indict the six BCPD cops. Will there be additional riots if a new community center isn't constructed? And what if these tactics do indeed work?  Will the community center then be torched if the next set of demands aren't met? You see where this could go?

Before any positive change comes about, there's needs to be some effort from the actual people who want it. It's relatively easy for the rebel-rousers to come into town and make random demands. But at some point, the people who live in these Baltimore neighborhoods need to participate in the process. And burning down buildings isn't part of it.

I'm hearing so much talk about the disenfranchised youth and the lack of education in Baltimore. While I agree that it is a big problem, we need to look at why it's been a problem for so long. Although funding for education always seems to be a source of contention, in Baltimore's case, I don't see the point. Baltimore City Schools are number four in the US (behind only NY, Boston and Wash DC) in school funding. Over $15,000 is spent on each student. Should we increase it to $30,000 or even $50,000 per student? What difference does it make if half of the "students" are absent from the classroom? This is something that should be addressed. But instead, rioters will threaten to break shit until someone else magically fixes it.

If we're going to fix any of these problems, we need to have open, honest discussions about the real causes. Until we start with that, we're just pissing in the wind....

                                                               (to be continued)

kw