Riots: A Losing Position
You would think that people would never have to resort to rioting in 2020, but this is the sixth consecutive night of rioting in America. It’s so sad to see so many people who are lost because many who are rioting are not personally affected by racism. They just happen to be lost in the cause by rioting because their friends are doing it or are angry themselves at baseline. Rather than focusing their energy on bettering themselves, they prefer to put our officers in harm’s way and loot department stores.
How many more lives lost and years passed must we experience in order to learn that rioting will never end racism? Do rioters believe that if they make a point by burning buildings, destroying cop cars and looting expensive stores, that “the system” will suddenly change? The system will not change by enacting violence and anger in the streets; if anything, this will only motivate the system to continue racism and inequality.
Watching these riots on television makes me upset personally and as a psychiatrist, because this is not how human beings should be solving problems. This reminds me of mental health patients who arrive in the emergency department agitated and psychotic, yelling at the psychiatrist and refusing to cooperate. But after a solution like therapy, medications and talking are offered, the patient drastically improves and is no longer angry.
It disappoints me to see people marching in the streets and committing acts of violence and looting because I know that it won’t solve anything. The system is too advanced, sophisticated and stuck in its ways to be dented by rioting. If anything, this situation only promotes the creation of a police state or a totalitarian state controlled by a political police force that secretly supervises the citizens’ activities.
With President Trump in power, this country has never had a better opportunity to be given a reason to instill a political police force into play. These riots are only reinforcing this idea and breathing life into it at the same time that George Floyd yelled, “I can’t breath.” Riots were never the solution in the past and never will be in the future. The solution is peacefully marching and showing “the system” that through strength and dignity, we will continue to stand united for what we believe in.
The solution is never replacing violence for violence; this chaos is exactly what the enemy loves and gets a kick out of. Let’s stop checkmating ourselves through immature and dangerous rioting and looting and let’s start being powerful and mature individuals while standing proudly together during times of adversity.
Are you Ready? (This is Defeating Stigma Mindfully)
DSM (Defeating Stigma Mindfully) 