For "Riot" Read: Uprising

[unsymbolic]

Reblogging from anticutsspace: Unapologetic solidarity and support to those involved in the UK uprisings these past nights. This sentiment extends to both the rioters and to those communities affected by them....I support this statement wholeheartedly. I also refuse to take part in any of the condemnatory (and frankly racist and classist) rhetoric

Comments

[girl_in_blue]

I agree 100%. I said immediately when Tottenham started to be reported that there was no way this was just about the shooting of one man, and now here we are. I have been horrified to hear so many of my friends calling for the army to be brought in, or referring to the rioters as 'animals' etc. I just don't understand how anyone can be surprised by what is going on, or how anyone can truly condemn it. Or how anyone of my generation in the UK can desire the army to be brought into our streets - do we really want London to become Londonderry?

[girl_in_blue]

There have been a few decent articles in the Guardian and the NY Times. I just read this:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/camila-batmanghelidjh-caring-costs-ndash-but-so-do-riots-2333991.html

I also heard that Greenwich is one of the areas they expect to be targeted tonight, FYI.

[girl_in_blue]

Let's not forget either that we have a young population, particularly black and asian, with bloody good reason to hate the police. not only because they do nothing for them, but because they treat them specifically like they are not part of the community, like they are criminals before they have done anything - with stop and search and so on.

[unsymbolic]

I've seen the "bring in the army" refrain too many times. I've also seen (economically-advantaged white) people claiming London as "their city" which these (poor non-white) young people should stop "messing up," as though the city doesn't belong to the dispossessed as much as it does to anyone.

Lots of helicopters and sirens around here today. We'll watch the net for news on Greenwich tonight.

And yes--you're absolutely right about how stop and search criminalizes black and Asian youth and how causal that clearly is in all of this. The language of racial profiling doesn't seem to get used as much in the UK as it does in the US, but that's exactly what is happening. The man in the video I just added above speaks about that exactly too.

[lokifan]

I don't think conflating the Rodney King events and these riots is helpful, tbh. There are similarities - but there are also vast differences.

Absolutely agree there's a lot of racist and classist rhetoric. I'm sick of hearing about "mindless thugs and morons".

[unsymbolic]

And there is also a vast difference between comparison and conflation. Talking about resonance between events is hardly the same thing as mistaking one for the other! Where in the above post do you see a statement mistaking or confusing what happened in LA in '92 with what is happening in London today?

The resonance I am pointing out is that both are cases of systemic inequities and the inchoate rage of the dispossessed boiling to the surface. Nowhere did I collapse one event onto the other, nor did I even begin to enumerate particular similarities or differences between them.

Bringing another historical event into the conversation isn't at all the same thing as conflating one for the next!

[lokifan]

Conflation also isn't the same as mistaking or confusing, you know :) And yeah, there's a resonance there. But I also think there are so, so many important differences that the resonance is in a lot of ways surface-level. I mean, I wasn't looking to crush your whole point or anything. But 'for riot read uprising' I think really neglects the specific *type* of alienation we're seeing here.

[unsymbolic]

You should probably check your definitions. To conflate is to combine two into one. It implies a collapse of differences, and to collapse differences is indeed to mistake or confuse one thing for the next. Conflation is a concept with pretty hefty negative connotations, and again, is radically different from resonance--a tonal reverberation which strikes a common chord. (A common chord, in case it is not evident, is not the same thing as playing the exact same tune, note for note.)

Perhaps you would like to explain how refusing the language of "riot" (with its intensely negative tone and connotations of criminality) and insisting on the more politically charged language of "uprising" neglects (or even takes up the issue of) specific types of alienation?

[tjs_whatnot]

Thanks for this.

[paulina90825]

Reblogging from anticutsspace Unapologetic solidarity and support to those involved in the UK uprisi