Riots escalate across London. And the Guardian UK offers this editorial.
BBC News has live coverage here.
Hard not to summon The Clash at this moment:
Incoming students, please follow national and international events. Things are moving, shifting very quickly on all sorts of fronts and regarding all sorts of issues.
This is your world. You must believe that. Pay attention. Resolve to care.
This is from a friend, Joe Costello, recalling Los Angeles, 1992, when people took to the streets following the "not guilty" verdicts against police officers accused of beating the unarmed motorist Rodney King:
ReplyDelete"I was in Los Angeles in '92 when some folks decided to burn a bit of the town. I will always remember the second night, driving down Sunset, it was right before dark and a night curfew had been imposed. Sunset was completely and ethereally empty. There used to be a vacant lot around the Rainbow Bar where you could look South and East across the whole city. It was an amazing view, the whole place seemed a fire, giant plumes of black smoke sprouting like morbid flowers. As I raced to a friends in Hollywood, I still remember trying to figure out whether I was more concerned about the burning and looting or pissed-off being put under a curfew. Many of my friend's neighbors got a lot of shopping done that night.
"These are always acts of pure frustration, they help nothing. The politics of democracy are difficult and long. Choose life"
~ Ms J.