FERGUSON, Mo.-- When protesters burned down a convenience store near
where a police officer fatally shot Michael Brown, many condemned it.
But experts say the ensuing images on national television could become
as much of a catalyst for social change as peaceful protests.
Ferguson
is the latest flashpoint of civil unrest in U.S. history that's caught
the national spotlight, along with the 1965 Watts Riots in Los Angeles,
Calif., the 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 1992
acquittal of police officers on trial for beating Rodney King.
"It
may be a challenge to see these primarily young males and females
rioting and looting as part of protest, but it is," said Priscilla
Dowden-White, a history professor at the University of Missouri – St.
Louis.
"You are talking about people who are living at or
below the poverty line. You are talking about people who are the
products of failing schools, and so I look at the looting as part of
survival."
Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager, was
fatally shot Aug. 9 after a white Ferguson police officer, Darren
Wilson, stopped him for walking in the middle of a local street. In the
days that followed, police using military-grade weapons, assault
vehicles and tear gas repeatedly clashed with crowds of angry citizens
in this St. Louis suburb.
Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon and Hillary Clinton both commented that the town looked like a "war zone" during the civil unrest.
But
Ferguson's looting created conversations that likely would not have
happened if only prayer vigils and other "normal" responses had
happened, Dowden-White said.
'AMERICA CREATED THIS'
Civil
disobedience through vandalism, theft and property destruction created
change after other periods of unrest despite the fact that nonviolent
protests of the 1960s have been largely credited with successes,
according to experts.
"The looters, the robbers, the chanters, the
nonviolent protests, the sign-making . . . all of it has value because
it wouldn't be international if it wasn't for the looters," said Amari
Sneferu, 54, of St. Louis. "There was a guy who came out of a store with
one hubcap rim. One. He can't drive or put that on his car. But he just
wanted to take something. He just wanted to do something. That was his
expression of outrage because a murderer is getting away with it."
"They (protesters) could see it was a war against them and they
were rebelling against that war," said Sneferu, who is the manager
general of the Universal African Peoples Organization and participated
in the protests.
He added that he was proud of young people
for taking matters into their own hands and not conforming to past
nonviolent tactics.
Another protester, Rev. Osagyefo Sekou, 43, agreed.
"America
created this," said Sekou, who went to high school in St. Louis and now
lives in California as a scholar in residence at Stanford University.
"So folks took some tennis shoes, some big TVs that ended up on the
black market--whatever."
CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERSHIP AGES
Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of African and African-American studies at Duke University, said it's also important to remember that the nonviolent movement of the 1960s civil rights movement was a historically specific strategy employed in response to the violence people were facing.
"The old guard civil rights
leadership has virtually no weight anymore with younger generations of
activists, particularly those folks who have been using social media,"
he said. "Rev. (Al) Sharpton was of value because he brings MSNBC with
him. But they (protesters) didn't need those figures."
Sharpton called for an end to looting several times in the last two
weeks, including at Brown's funeral, as he delivered a eulogy. He also
reminded people that Brown's parents, just days after their son was
killed, pleaded with the public to act peacefully.
"They had to
break their mourning to ask folks to stop looting and rioting," Sharpton
said.
"You imagine they are heartbroken--their son taken, discarded and
marginalized. And they have to stop mourning to get you to control your
anger, like you are more angry than they are."
Protesters also distanced themselves from looters and at times created human barriers to stop people from going into stores. Christopher
Scott, 24, of Northwoods, Mo., and Mauricelm-Lei Millere, 41, of
Washington, D.C. both stood outside businesses to keep others from
getting inside and stealing items.
The men said they didn't agree with stealing and thought people should not use Brown's death for their own profits.
"It's selfish," Millere, an advisor with the New Black Panther Party, said. "I protected it because I'm not a thief."
Scott's
reasoning was personal. "It's not right for us to tear down our own
community," he said. "When it comes down to it, we sleep here. We live
here. We eat it here. We have to suffer."
A NEIGHBOR'S VIEW
For others, the issue is more complex.
Genetra
Spears, 33, lives in Canfield Green Apartments just feet away from
where Brown was killed. She left her apartment the day the teen was
killed sensing that there might be unrest. She didn't return for two
weeks because of the demonstrations.
She's disappointed that she
can no longer grab ice, snacks, and soda from QuikTrip, which was burned
down by protesters. But, she also understands people's anger, though
she scoffed at the idea of such behavior.
"They did what they had to do," Spears said. "But I ain't looting because I ain't no thief."
Meanwhile, the actions of looters and rioters in Ferguson had similar goals to nonviolent actions, said Keisha Bentley-Edwards, a professor at the University of Texas-Austin who studies race, adolescence and academic and social development. Both--either through looting or bus boycotts--disrupted businesses, changed the status quo in communities, and called into question people's assumptions of safety.
'THIS IS OUR TIME'
"When
people romanticize the 1960's, they look at it as a time when people
dressed up in suits and shiny shoes and walked down the street
arm-in-arm," Bentley-Edwards said. "But people forget Martin Luther
King was arrested several times."
That idea isn't lost on Diamond Latchison, 21. She said her
generation is keeping in mind the past while understanding that rioting,
followed by peaceful protests, gave the story legs.
"It got the
media's attention," Latchison, of Florissant, said. "This is our
generation's way of saying, 'You cannot quiet us down. You cannot tell
us to shut up. This is our movement. You guys had your movement in the
60's and on. Now, this is our time. You guys say we don't do anything,
so this is us doing something.'"
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