The Baltimore riots could be the beginning of a new black history in urban America. Too bad all so many people can see is “thugs.”
The supposedly sophisticated twitterati take on what has happened after Freddie Gray’s funeral is to essentially rationalize the riots by explaining that the looting we’ve seen on our TV screens was just collateral damage for institutional racism.
Put aside for the moment that many of the businesses and cars destroyed in the attacks were black-owned. Put aside also that Baltimore’s mayor and police chief are black. Nevertheless, there are indeed structural issues that have combined to create this moment—but they don’t fit the narrative being proposed as higher wisdom.
