A beginning aside: This blog is directed towards the destructive individuals who committed their deeds under the guise of protest.

In my previous post, I stated the following regarding the potential reaction to an unjust verdict against the Oakland (BART) police officer who shot Oscar Grant III on New Year’s Day:

If it is proven that the officer was not in possession of a Taser or that he had intended on using his gun, then anything less than a second degree murder charge will certainly threaten to resurrect the ire and destructive frustration that years ago caused the city of Los Angeles to erupt in flames. And rightfully so.

And rightfully so. I guess I didn’t really think about that sentence when I first wrote it. What I seemed to neglect in my memory of the L.A. riots was that a number of innocent people who had nothing to do with the Rodney King verdict that acquitted four cops were hurt, some severely beaten. What I also neglected to recall were that many of the businesses that suffered from the riots were owned by African-Americans. So, the black rage towards the injustice many perceived as coming from the police and a biased justice system was then transferred onto, not the people who actually perpetuated the crime, but against innocents and other people of color. Not only did it appear senseless, but honestly, to a lot of people on the outside of that fiery bubble, it also appeared pretty damn stupid.

Here we are, nearly eighteen years after the Rodney King verdict. A crime perhaps more heinous than the King beating occurs, but the lessons taught during the L.A. riots have apparently gone unheeded. An angry mob, spurred by the shooting days ago, swarmed the streets of Oakland busting storefront windows, burning cars and wreaking having against, once again, the wrong people. Some of the owners of these establishments were African-American, some were not. But I guarantee you, none of them had anything to do with the shooting. Why destroy the property of your fellow man, especially those who are just trying to live their lives like everyone else. When you do this, what point are you really making that will actually open the eyes of the people that matter — those people being authority figures as well as people who turn a blind eye or even secretly applaud the kind of unbalanced justice we saw last week?

The only thing worse than blind, destructive anger is self-destructive anger, anger without a purpose. Anger directed not towards the perpetrators but towards those who are easily accessible and do not pose any real threat to your own well-being. Perhaps this mob that ravaged the Oakland streets last night could learn a lesson or two from another group that hailed from Oakland. Only this group knew who the enemy was. They were not self-destructive and they did not direct their anger towards a group because they were a certain color or because they were easy to intimidate. They held their weapons close and their eyes honed in on the true enemy, that being any human being who felt it to be their right to place a boot heel on the necks of any man or woman they felt were inferior or unworthy of justice.

These men and women were members of the Black Panther Party. They instilled a sense of security in the people for whom they fought, and fear in the hearts of their enemies. They made their point, loud and clear. Now, what about you? What point are you making? And to whom?