Don’t complain about violence

Once again, those who have seldom been the object of police thuggery are expounding to those who (have) about the best way to respond to it.

Don’t resort to violence, they urge. But these are the same individuals who were enraged by Colin Kaepernick’s peaceful protest. Therefore, when most white people say “protest peacefully,” they mean, “don’t protest at all.”

For those who say “violence never works,” I will remind readers that George Washington was anything but a pacifist, just as there were no passive protests at King George’s palace. Indeed, white Americans are hardly able to stake out the moral high ground vis-a-vis peaceful protest. Never have we believed in nonviolence, and rarely do we practice it.

Rather, we have invariably stolen what we want, and when opposed, never have we shied away from wanton acts of violence to get what we want.

To complain about the violence perpetrated by black people without also complaining about the violence carried out against them is contradictory. So too does it ignore the structural violence created by the capitalist system that remains unseen by most white people. Redlining, gentrification, stop-andfrisk, predatory lending, etc., are forms of violence.

When white people ask, “Why are blacks so angry, and why do some of them engage in looting?” we show contempt for truth, as well as a wholly ahistorical grasp of American society. We question as though history never happened because, for many of us, it didn’t. In the end, it is unseemly to berate black people concerning the use of violence or to claim that “it never works” when, in reality, it often does. Worse yet is our persistence that we are not responsible for the circumstances which have created this current calamity.

Guy Marsh Lancaster

May it never be

How can you get justice if you don’t give justice a chance. In a civilized society, which we claim as ours, justice is achieved in the court system. That’s why they call it the “justice system.”

Burning, looting and killing because of an unjust action only creates another unjust action. Does that then call for another round of riots to demand justice for those murdered police officers and people whose business were burned and looted? Can you see where this is going? A vicious circle with no end.

Consider this. If you can excuse the felonious deeds as we have all witnessed of the rioters then you should excuse the felonious deeds of a rogue cop. May it never be. Harold Holifield

Palmdale

Look into it

Our state, county and city representatives should investigate the deplorable conditions at Joshua park Cemetery.

Alicia Avila Lancaster