The vacuum (We've Been Here Before II)

Rooftop Koreans defending their businesses
during the 1992 Los Angeles riots

I've mentioned that I don't often comment on events of the day because others say it better than me. Regarding the Rittenhouse situation Ginny at Chicago Boys says it better. Below is an excerpt from her post Rittenhouse Found (Appropriately) Not Guilty but Who Was?

We can say, at least I would say, that even a well-intentioned 17-year-old should avoid riots. (As our eyes could see, whatever the networks said.)  However, for most of our past 17-year-olds were considered adults – they married, fought, supported households; forbidding alcohol  recognizes strong bodies but maturing judgement. Nonetheless, Rittenhouse’s mission appears to have been felt honestly, the desire to establish order is response to chaos. When faced with one attacker, he remained, well, I’m not sure if calm is the word.  Still he didn’t shoot a man bearing in on him until that man lowered his gun, pointed it directly at his head as he lay on the ground. Someone older might have handled all of it with fewer deaths, someone trained to be a policeman, a soldier.  Someone like that might have been careful not to be alone, too.   But, then, we might ask – where were older men?   Who made decisions that led to that night, how could they have been so terribly irresponsible?  Where were all the grown men (and womn), mayors and governors, that long summer?  Watching the previous day, Rittenhouse  understood life would never be the same for his father and his grandmother when property was treated cavalierly, violence and arson  unchecked.  A vacuum pulled him in.

People of my age have been there before.  We remember the 60’s and 70’s, then the 80’s and 90’s, we remember the destruction and vigilantes.  The gun as “peacemaker” in a lawless town is a mainstay of our culture.  The frontier might not have been as we saw it portrayed in western after western, but the human tendencies portrayed are:  we were quite aware of what happens when order breaks down, when our property (of all kinds, personal and real, familial and intellectual, our bodies themselves) is not respected and protected by an ordered society.  In a vacuum, force and violence settle disputes, access property, force servility.

A rampaging mob in St. Louis chooses rooms in a man’s house, threatening death to pets, the rape of the man’s wife.  And he is arrested for protecting that house.  A hundred cars are torched in a single lot in Kenosha.  Chaos generally leaves the weak vulnerable, as the unprincipled, the untethered strong are unrestrained.  Pop culture, reacting, glorifies vigilantes.  Sure we don’t want a country run by vigilante justice.  It simply appears the only answer:  quick and simple.  It is satisfying entertainment at such a time.

In the fifties when many had seen how thin the veneer of Western order could be, Hollywood offered Shane.  Later cities became more ragged, harsh, disordered.  Vigilante plots responded to the chaos of riots and the years of crack.  Dirty Harry movies began in 1971, ended in 1987; The A Team ran  from 1983-87.  The Equalizer ads indicate its contemporary protagonist (Queen Latifah) is a strong, competent but violent defender of the weak – as was Edward Woodward, in the series that ran from 1985-1989.

Kyle Rittenhouse felt he needed to be there, not necessarily from a grandiose vision of himself, hardly for racist reasons,  impelled by many reasons, I assume, but underlying it was the knowledge that a vacuum existed in Kenosha where law and order should have been.

  

Practicing for a riot

This video shows South Korean military police practicing tactics and maneuvers to counter a violent demonstration. They've broken their force into discrete packages of police that can reenforce or relieve the front line, or move through the front line to push demonstrators back. I know that in the past South Korea has had some wild protests, it looks like they're well trained to try to contain such demonstrations.
    

Style, race and riots

Click to enlarge

The Zoot Suit race riots of the 1940s took their name from a style. Young Mexican Americans, who called themselves pachucos, favored the baggy suit coats and trousers, long key chains and thick soled shoes that identified them as Zoot Suiters.

In the early war years there was a lot of racial paranoia in California, as well as fears of a Mexican crime wave being stoked by local newspapers. The L.A. County Sheriff's Office convened a grand jury about the crime wave and their expert E. Duran Ayres reported: 

"Mexican Americans are essentially Indians and therefore Orientals or Asians. Throughout history, he declared, the Orientals have shown less regard for human life than have the Europeans. Further, Mexican Americans had inherited their 'naturally violent' tendencies from the 'bloodthirsty Aztecs' of Mexico who were said to have practiced human sacrifice centuries ago. At one point in his report Ayres even compared the Anglo to a domesticated house cat and the Mexican to a 'wild cat,' suggesting that the Mexican would forever retain his wild and violent tendencies no matter how much education or training he might receive. [source]"

Adding to the tensions was a high profile trial of a group of pachucos accused of beating another man to death. The fuse was lit on June 3, 1943 when a group of sailors on shore leave reported they had been assaulted by by a group of  pachucos.

This touched off a 'dungaree liberty', an old naval tradition in which sailors go ashore and bust up an offending liberty port while officers look the other way. Groups of sailors and marines went to East L.A. and beat up any Zoot Suiters they found and stripped them of their clothes. This went on for several days and flared up briefly in other cities. It only ended when Los Angeles was made off-limits for shore leave. 

Shopping with violence

While the Zoot Suit Riots were clearly race riots, the recent riots in England have been something else entirely. Instead, they've been described as 'shopping with violence' by some English pundits.

David Starkey, a British historian, created a bit of an uproar on the BBC when he said that at the rioters were actually a mixture of Jamaican youth and Chavs (the British equivalent of white trash) who had adopted the style of American Black Gangsta culture. 

Naturally, the left-leaning panel on the BBC went berserk over this suggestion, accusing him of racism. This accusation made in spite if the fact that the BBC has been going out of its way to find pictures and stories of white looters -- which I would think rather eloquently makes Starkey's point that it is a youth subculture and not a race that is rioting.

But I digress, back to Zoot Suits and style...

As the Guardian reports in UK riots: Love affair with gangster-chic turns sour for top fashion brands (HT: Gates if Vienna) the riots are causing problems for some in the fashion industry:

Branding experts are warning that the riots are a wake-up call for the fashion brands that JD Sports stocks. They have cultivated a "gangster chic" image and found themselves targeted by looters across the country. Mark Borkowski, a PR and branding expert, said that image was now coming back to haunt them.

"The riots are an absolute disaster for a number of brands. From the day the Daily Mail and the Guardian used that picture of the hoodie equipped completely in Adidas it has become a massive crisis.

"It has been a wake-up call for many brands which have spent millions developing 'gangster chic' and 'dangerwear' images." A rioter dressed head-to-toe in Adidas was pictured on the front pages of most of the country's national newspapers on Tuesday. One of the youngest offenders appeared at court this week in a full Adidas tracksuit. The brand, which is one of the major sponsors of the 2012 Olympics, took the step of condemning its customers for taking part in the riots. "Adidas condemns any antisocial or illegal activity," the company said. "Our brand has a proud sporting heritage and such behaviour goes against everything we stand for."

From what I've read the British, who were already disgusted by the youth culture, are absolutely furious in the aftermath of the riots. They've already began evicting those arrested and their families from public housing, and a bill is working its way through Parliament to also remove them from the welfare rolls.

Needless to say, the major clothing brands that opted to promote themselves with rappers and gansta-chic are terrified that they're going to be caught up in the backlash. Levi's already pulled one of their  'Go Forth' ads that featured a scene of a young man facing off against a group of riot police. Other brands are no doubt scrambling to minimize the damage their branding may cause them.

Screen grab of a youth facing police from the withdrawn Levi's "Go Forth"  ad.

To live or to just be alive, that’s the question.

Then at Towhid Square the scene changes drastically. The streets to Azadi are blocked. But this time, people don’t change their path. They fight for it. There’s a shower of stones. Tear gas. Fire. People jam the sidewalks. The battle scene is huge. We cannot see the limits but it extends to nearby street. My student is keener to go forward than I am. Her mother could persuade her to stay home for two days, but now allows her to go out on the most dangerous day. The people shout, ‘Down with the dictator’. The anti-riot police are also throwing stones. People don’t run back anymore. I grab a broken brick and throw. I’m amazed. I never thought I’d do it. I should practice. It was a very bad shot. I grab another one, the size of a pomegranate and keep it with me, hiding it behind my back. My feeling is a mixture of a university teacher and a hooligan.

If we want to go forward we need to pass through tear gas. So we ask a car to give us a lift. Then there is an attack. They cannot tell enemy from other people although they want to show everything is fine and they’re only after trouble-makers. There is a woman who is being beaten. She’s horrified and hysterical but not as much as the anti-riot police officer facing her. She shrieks, ‘Where can I go? You tell me go down the street and you beat me. Then you come up from the other side and beat me again. Where can I go?’ In sheer desperation, the officer hits his helmet several times hard with his baton. ‘Damn me! Damn me! What the hell do I know!’

One person's account of a day in downtown Tehran. I wish her good luck. Read the entire post: A Day in the Life.