So, recently students at Keene State University began rioting during the community’s annual Pumpkinfest in which the try to set the record for the most jack-o-lantern’s carved and lit in one neighbourhood. While I was reading the article this morning on CBC I thought, damn it sounds like they got really out of hand; there were reports of cars being flipped over and fires in the streets. Yet, as I watched The Young Turks this evening they brought up a very good point and that was, what if that had been in a community like Ferguson? So I decided to watch some youtube videos from the riot. The first one I clicked on had a young man summarizing the events and talking to the students around him…..you can see the students are fairly out of hand but yet pay no regard to the officers. Many take selfie`s in front of them, one guy even went up to shake one of the riot officer`s hand. Now, had these students been predominantly black, they would have been shot at and tear gassed to no end, but these were white folks and the officer`s were mostly white. It`s interesting, a black man can surrender and raise his arms but it`s okay to shoot him dead but a school of students drunkenly rioting in the streets deserve a little tear gas and a slap on the hand. These kids have beer pong tables in the streets and blatantly tear down street signs yet the police just continue to walk down the road with their shields and you know the only thing they`re shooting them with? Paintballs. Even as the camera guy asked a victim who had been shot how it felt, the victim laughed and said, “I felt nothin’, they ain’t got shit dude.” When another guy tries to rush them, they just throw him to the ground! Ferguson and that guy woulda been dead in a second. I understand the potential risks of this riot, but I don’t understand killing an unarmed man in cold blood just because he was black. America seriously needs to rethink some tactics because that was just pathetic.
Laura Ω 