The Baltimore Riots: A Long Time Coming

As parts of Baltimore burned following the funeral of Freddie Gray, it became painfully clear how divided the city — and our nation — truly is. Baltimore is a city of neighborhoods, each with its own signature charm. But in a time in Baltimore’s history where neighborhoods like Federal Hill, Harbor East, Fells Point, and Canton thrive, other neighbors, some not even a few blocks away from those previously mentioned, are overrun by generations of systemic poverty and violence.

It’s easy to get caught up in the images of senseless violence and lose focus of the real issue. This was not some random, isolated event. Baltimore is, and has been, a tinderbox of racial oppression and police brutality; Freddie Gray’s death was only the match. The looters and rioters — mostly high school students — were counterproductive. These outraged youth detracted from Baltimore’s peaceful but untelevised protest. Still their anger is justified and so very understandable. This community of young people have lived their entire lives in systemic poverty. John Angelos, the COO of the Baltimore Orioles, nailed this point in a tweetstorm which everyone should read:

“My greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good, hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.”

Since Ferguson there have been many instances of police aggression. Yet this didn’t begin in Ferguson, nor did it begin in Baltimore. This violence has been a long time coming and it represents a crisis of the justice system in America. A common narrative is that the inexcusable violence in Baltimore expressed anger over the death of Freddie Gray.

On a deeper level this anger comes from economic and judicial violence directed against poor, black communities. It is easy to feign concern when fearmongering national news broadcasts sensationalize violence. But if true justice is to be served, we as a nation must change our criminal justice system. A government intent on promoting racism through poverty is bound to fall. Black lives matter. Michael Brown’s life mattered; Eric Garner’s life mattered; Freddie Gray’s life mattered; and until Americans truly realize that all lives matter, the senseless violence will continue in more American cities and with greater intensity.