zlacker

>>novia+(OP)
Am I the only one that gets the feeling these riots have nothing to do with George Floyd at this point and are just a massive boiling over of tension from Coronavirus lockdown orders?

>>war102+63
Riots happen when the social contact is broken.

For some people the primary social contact that is broken is long running systemic racism.

For some it's militarization of the police.

For some it's the US seemingly slowly sliding in facism

For some it's the economic Injustice of being told "the economy", i.e. the stock market is doing great while unemployment is at an all time high.

Etc

>>X6S1x6+Bc
>Riots happen when the social contact is broken.

This strikes me as too simplistic solution. I tried to find papers on how demonstrations become riots, but my google.scholar-fu has failed. Anyone got good review papers on this? (If none exist, there is a goldmine there for social scientists.)

>>Pinegu+ag
How about picking up a history book.

In 1773, King George was upping taxes while not providing adequate representation. Colonists thought this was an abuse of power, so they robbed and looted a huge boat filled with tea, which set off events that led to the American Revolution. Look it up, I'm sure there's a wikipedia article or something, it's pretty famous event in history.

>>gremli+Tk
They did not rob or loot. They destroyed the tea, and only the tea, which belonged to the East India Company, a defacto arm of the UK government. They did not steal any tea. They did not break anything else.

>>dTal+Up
So, if I just go into a store that sells Armani suits or something, and destroy the suits, but I don't take them.. that's okay. Correct?

Edit, are you also insinuating that's the only 'rioting' they did and then magically the USA just formed out of nothing?

>>gremli+Qy
I'm not insinuating anything, or making any value judgements on what is "okay". I'm correcting the record. "Looting" is stealing. They did not loot.

This is HN. You don't need to project motivations on people when pedantry is sufficient.

(Your Armani analogy doesn't work however - a better analogy would be destroying property owned by, say, Halliburton.)