Baltimore is burning, more in the figurative sense today than in the literal one, although yesterday angry rioters put the city’s bravest through its paces. Just before sundown, protesters set fire to a CVS pharmacy (after looting it, of course), then severed a fire hose so that firefighters could not extinguish the flames. A newly built senior center affiliated with a church was also torched, and cars were randomly set ablaze or destroyed through vandalism.
Today, a restive calm prevails, but that is because the city is on lockdown. Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake has imposed a seven-day curfew, and the National Guard has been activated.
All the usual apologists are out in force, excusing the latest acts of wanton destruction by seeking out the alleged root causes of the unrest. MSNBC’s Michael Eric Dyson blames the riots on income inequality and lead poisoning, while the Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates helpfully observes, “When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con.” Blaming the police for using excessive force, while excusing black-on-black violence, is also a con, but Coates prefers not to focus on that inconvenient truth.
Most pitiful of all are the “thoughtful” musings of liberals who know better than to let a race riot go to waste (to paraphrase onetime Obama senior adviser Rahm Emanuel). The Baltimore Superintendent of Schools tweeted this this morning:
Baltimore City Public Schools: “We hope to treat this situation not only as a teachable moment but also a time for thoughtful reflection”
— Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) April 28, 2015
And then there is this tweet cluelessly posted yesterday at the height of the mayhem:
If you aspire to be a better community organizer, this is for you: http://t.co/Nrmi9c8SLo — Barack Obama (@BarackObama) April 27, 2015
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