Originally Posted by cockerpunk
(Post 11180560)
idk, when i talk to conservatives about it, they either try to downplay its severity as if it wasn't really that bad (in order to try to insult me), or they try to say my city was a warzone to make a political point, so i dont know. they flip flop back and forth so fast i dont know what they actually think, or "how bad it actually was"
it was what is was for me. which, was more than it was for 99.9% of the country.
what i can tell you, is that all government resources were unavailable, including police, and all businesses were shut down, for days. even weeks.
days were really interesting. in the mornings, we'd go to the rioted areas from the night before, and clean up. masked, socially distenced, we all showed up with brooms and trash bags and cleaned up. we also brought our protest signs. basically everyone had protest signs, there was no one cleaning up with pro-police signs. and then in the afternoon the aid stations would open up. without government assistance and with stores closed, hundreds of aid stations across the city opened up. those of us with trucks and gas, would collect money, and buy supplies and bring them into the city. i delivered thousands of dollars in supplies. and volunteers would stack the food shelves, and others would distribute it. i spent one afternoon helping coordinate supplies for boarding up local businesses, it was out of a local theater. the theater community was sending teams of carpenters around the city to repair and refortify businesses. theater people are very productive. this was all free of charge of course.
lots of times there would an evening protests. protests were well supported, with food, bathrooms, water, etc. again, free of charge, donated, and totally volunteer coordinated. or in the evenings is when id work from home. i remember very vividly the feeling of sitting on my deck, drinking a beer, listening to the walgreens 2 blocks south getting attacked. it was a surreal moment.
and at night, we'd prepare for the worst. we coordinated neighborhood watches, google docs with times and places, coordinate schedules. these watches were highly effective at preventing outsiders from coming into the neighborhoods and starting fires. even put many fires out that the police/fire department couldn't/wouldnt. we didnt need guns, being armed was a great way to be shot by the police. i mean, a lot of neighborhood watches were shot by the police, even unarmed, while trying to protect their own neighborhoods because the police couldn't.
its also why when folks try to characterize these times as BLM versus police, its a false conclusion. the police were utterly useless at best, if not outright dangerous to the community. they would show up hours after a building was attacked, and just start macing and beating up folks attempting to cleanup, or defend buildings. the police openly admitted to slashing tires at protests. the police were either incompetent in not understanding what was happening, or unwilling to understand what was happening.
and the national guard is not effective for the reasons people think it is. 99% of the national guard here were unarmed. they had zipties in there magwells. the national guard works not because they are an overwhelming show of force, but because they do not want to be there. the national guard look like they are wearing uniforms 2 sizes too big for them. they dont want to be there at all. on the other hand, the cops, THEY WANT TO WIN. and so they show up to win a fight, and the national guard shows up, talks to you/them, communicates, and coordinates aide. the cops show up to win a fight. and fight or not fight, they will make one. my friend she tells an interesting story where a building was on fire on her block, and people attempted to get the polices attention to send the fire department to put it out, and the cops refused to go down that block because it was "too dangerous" and the national guard showed up, 3 guys got out, unarmed, and cleared a path for the fire department. it wasn't even dangerous.
keep in mind, all this volunteer work, all this coordination, everything was done while social distancing and masked. because like how there werent any pro-police protest signs while cleaning up, there arnt anti-maskers who show up to volunteer time, money and energy to help people in need.
it was strange time. it was a defining 2 week period in my life, that i saw many things, many things i never would have otherwise seen. and i learned a lot. it changed my mind a lot, and reframed a lot of what i thought about the world. i do not recommend it to anyone.
i dont know if that answers your questions, but that was some of my experiences.
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