plumprlvr's blog post - Sad commentary

Early in the morning of New Years Day, Oscar Grant was shot in the back by BART police. This was tragic enough but it brings to my mind some sad commentary as we have now endured two weeks of periodic protests (most peaceful, some not).
1. Would there be the protests if it was a 40 something white guy shot and not a 22 yo black man (case can be made that a middle aged white guy wouldn't have been shot).
2. During the protest last week, a man's car was burned. He was white guy in his 50's. He was upset that his car was burned but he fully understood the anger that fueled it.
3. Some peoples idea of justice. A young black man was quoted on TV that "they wanted justice; the cop arrested, the cop brought to trial, and the cop convicted". Sounds a lot like the "justice" blacks and Jews received in the South during the first half of the last century in the US.
4. Tonight a second protest march was held in Oakland. It was peaceful until the end. Then a bunch of self styled anarchists, mostly white skate board types, broke lose and started to smash windows and raise general havoc.(oh excuse me, the TV just informed me these were vandals not anarchists. Guess the anarchists PR people/lawyers got ahold of the TV stations )
4. These people were too stupid to realize that banks have shatter-proof glass. One young gent must have thrown himself into the window of a Wells Fargo store at least a half dozen times. I wanted to yell at him, "Dude that glass can withstand a 50 caliber, point blank shot. Do you really think you can break that glass." Then I laughed as, after his last attempt to break the window, got up holding his shoulder like he had separated it.

The saddest commentary of all is Mr. Grants mother told people after last weeks march that her son would not have wanted the violence. That the people who had business damaged or cars burned were just as innocent as he was.