Ferguson resident: “There’s going to be hell to pay” if businesses don’t rebuild
Some residents have it backwards: “No Jobs = No Peace,” but the opposite is true
Look up irony in the dictionary, and by all rights you should find a footnote pointing to this news story from CBS re: Ferguson MO: “Ferguson residents frustrated over lack of opportunity.”
The story notes that the previous night was sufficiently quiet–“just eight arrests”–and that the National Guard is pulling out (meaning, productive people are being released to go back to their day jobs.)
The irony arose when the reporter spoke to local Ferguson residents. The common theme among those interviewed was outrage that local businesses–you know, the ones that had been relentlessly looted and vandalized by local residents–had not hurried to rebuild and offer jobs to local residents. Huh. Who knew that robbing and burning local businesses might prove a disincentive to them investing and hiring in the community!
Anybody remember this guy?
The reporter also notes that unemployment in Ferguson among black men 20 to 24 years of age is 46%. Forty. Six. Percent. Presumably that figure is pre-riots. Might it have doubled in the interval?
In any case, the fault is clearly that of the looted/burned businesses. As one local young man puts it, if they don’t come back and rebuild these businesses, “there’s going to be hell to pay.”
They are particularly upset that they now have to drive miles out of the way to access the products and services that used to be provided locally . . . by the businesses looted and burned down by local residents. Oops.
In further irony, the very fact that the looted businesses are not providing jobs to the local community is justification for the businesses being looted. Or something.
And finally we get to the former gang member turned some kind of community organizer or bridge builder or whatever, who lays it right on the line: “No jobs = no peace.”
Oofah.
–-Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
Andrew F. Branca is an MA lawyer and the author of the seminal book “The Law of Self Defense, 2nd Edition,” available at the Law of Self Defense blog (autographed copies available) and Amazon.com (paperback and Kindle). He also holds Law of Self Defense Seminars around the country, and provides free online self-defense law video lectures at the Law of Self Defense Institute and podcasts through iTunes, Stitcher, and elsewhere.
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Comments
“. . . if they don’t come back and rebuild these businesses [after we’ve destroyed them], ‘there’s going to be hell to pay.’”
When this sort of thinking is brought into testing centers for the SAT, results are predictable.
A few years back, there was what can only be referred to as the standard rioting over a very minor and non-lethal altercation nearby. One of the buildings burned was a Dollar General located in the middle of a low income housing area. It provided the only close place to shop for essentials. The manager had grown up there, and everybody employed at the store lived there. The manager called a community meeting and explained the facts, and announced that Dollar General would be rebuilding the store. However, if it was burned or extensively damaged in the future, they would close it. So far, so good.
Has anyone ever sat down with these guys and asked them about why they think these things? Or explained to them that businesses open – and close – based on if they can earn a profit? I’m sure there are some people with “street cred” – say, a rapper like Pharrel or Will-i-am, who can explain how businesses and making money works?
Because they obviously have no idea…….and they need to understand it, or they will be the first fall, as they are ignorant “useful idiots” and have no idea how duped they are.
What a tragedy. An old UNCF PSA said, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” These poor, deluded people are prime examples of just that.
It’s not like they learn that in school.
They chose not to learn at school because being education has no value for them. They don’t get bigger welfare checks and it’s a lot of work. Anyway they don’t want to act white.
I’m not sure this is entirely fair. Twice in the post you blame the looting on “local” people. For sure local residents were involved in the looting, but there is also no doubt that non-local opportunistic interlopers played a role, too.
Once the media nationalized the story and gave it almost 24/7 coverage, it was like a national advertisement inviting criminals from St. Louis and elsewhere to come and take what they want. And some did.
You are absolutely correct. Many, if mot most of the looters and arsonists are Democrat Agents Provocatuer. They are there to stir up violence. They have nothing to lose; it’s not their neighborhood they are burning.
This is the face of the Democratic Party in action.
You object to my noting that local Ferguson residents looted their neighborhood stores, then concede that “For sure local residents were involved in the looting”?
How many of these “visiting” looters were pointed out to policy by local Ferguson residents? I’m guessing none.
🙂
–Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
My “objection” is that your post reads, at least to me, that local residents were solely responsible for the looting. That is not true.
I would link directly to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, but they’ve got a requirement that I must answer a goofy survey question before the site will allow me access to the story. I refuse to answer the survey. But here’s a summary from a source citing the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
“The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, our local paper here, had the mugshots of the nine people who were arrested for looting; out of the nine people, only one of them were from the Ferguson area.”
http://www.tpnn.com/2014/08/14/tpnn-exclusive-christopher-arps-gives-details-on-riots-from-ferguson-missouri/
I was trying to give you a friendly heads up in case you wanted to tighten up the language before an adversary pounces and accuses Legal Insurrection of distorting the facts.
Was it not the Ferguson residents who screamed for vengeance and brought all of this attention down? You reap what you sow; especially, when you can’t even wait for the justice system to work through facts and evidence first before demanding action.
I don’t care who actually did the looting and rioting..this isn’t Katrina where a natural disaster started this mess.
It could also be that the majority of those caught did not know the alleys and backyards of the area like the locals.
Maybe the Ferguson resident looters just got away
Example: A hooker entices me, but as a creature of FREE WILL, I chose not to engage.
A car with the keys in the ignition sits before you: do you steal it merely because you can?
Commentators: Quite making excuses for these thuglings or you’ll only have more. This has been the relativist BS drowning the nation for sixty years and more.
It’s basically irrelevant. If the Fergusonian ‘hood dwellers hadn’t gone all Trayvon about MB and waited for some facts to come out, they wouldn’t have drawn outsiders like stink to crap in the first place. If they’d told Jesse and Al and the local rabble rousers to hit the road and they weren’t going to play that game instead of welcoming them with open arms, there’d be a different outcome.
The race baiters have taken a so-so town and turned it into another shithole. Property values are plummeting, businesses are leaving, etc..
If these people actually intended to work at these jobs they’re demanding, they’d be working already and trying to protect their neighborhoods, not raze it.
So, the local participants and the local onlookers wanted this and they got it.. Maybe, just maybe, somebody, they’ll have a “Duh!” moment and figure out what a stupid thing to do this all was.
No justice, no peace, yeah right. What a joke these people are. You don’t crap where you eat, and you don’t let others do it, either, or help them do it….unless you’re satisfied with living in crap.
Indeed. Although it may be true that most of the rioters and looters were “outsiders”, the locals did nothing to stop them. If they had militantly opposed them, they could have kept things peaceful. But they didn’t. Certain inconvenient conclusions about the local people are easy to make.
Are you claiming that it was out of towners that spray painted “Snitches get Stiches” on the side of the destroyed QT?
Laso the original outsiders were froma housing project technically not in Ferguson.
Outsiders didn’t really appear until the second half of the original riots. Granted the second recent wave of protestors are mostly out of town Occupier rejects.
Looting sprees start locally.
Afterwards, after a suitable ad campaign provided gratis by the press, you can expect commuters.
But it’s the locals who can prevent it all by not starting it in the first place.
You really frustrated braw’? Well, you pissed away your 12-15 years of FREE education, and instead decided to be all gangsta kewl and not act white. So you can’t understand why nobody will hire you when you go apply for a job and can’t either fill out the application or speak reasonably well. Personally, I won’t hire a person who addresses me as dawg, casually refers to other people as dem muh’fu*kers and has no idea of proper workplace conduct and decorum. Never mind that you cannot walk without one hand holding up your pants, so they don’t fall completely below your butt cheeks; I’m not hiring you to model underwear.
So, try this. Go to the public library – you know it as the ‘lyberry’ – and get into one of the FREE adult reading programs. Learn to read and comprehend. Then, start reading real books about real things. Don’t let the reading program people steer you to “race appropriate” books; that’s why your neighborhood is in the shape it is. If they insist, demand, not ask, for all the books Thomas Sowell ever wrote. Once you read Sowell, you’ll learn that you have been lied to and used by Democrats, big and small.
Read about other things that matter, starting with books on etiquette (the older the better). Read about philosophy, about governmental systems. Spend months catching up on what you have missed, on what your “community” has denied you. Learn to dress, act and speak like a person at-large. Not a black, white, brown or yellow person but a person who thinks, acts and believes independently.
Lose your loser friends. Be your own person. Question everything. Learn a skill, even if it’s menial and entry-level. Work hard, smile and be sincere. Most importantly, learn something new every single day. Learn what it means to be truthful and honorable and apply that to your life.
Do all this with boldness and alacrity, and the world will fall into your lap.
That was an outstanding short course in how to be a successful human being, 101.
I’d just add…
1. don’t make babies. Free sex is anything BUT free sex. If you are in a stable relationship with a person worthy of the title “husband” or “wife”, make that happen, and THEN have children when you can afford them.
2. don’t use drugs. If you drink, do so like an adult: responsibly, NOT self-destructively, and never to the point you lose all self-control. Don’t use anything illegal. Don’t hang with those who use or sell anything illegal. This may mean you are alone. That is not a bad thing, and may impel you to find other people with good values you would not otherwise have been prompted to find.
Wonderful post, beautifully stated!
You bring up a valid issue, in your wonderfully biting sarcasm, which is their education. Who could, with a straight face, say “they were probably educated by conservatives”??? It is painfully obvious that their pitiful years in school were close to 100% wasted by their liberal educators, who care more about indoctrinating kids into their statist ideology than giving them a quality education that might give them a pretty darn good chance at life.
But it’s far worse than that. Even the liberals I know who have degrees well beyond a high school diploma show very little evidence of critical thinking when it comes to government, social issues, or simply politics in general. Show them the videos of these confused, illogical, and very angry people and they will not be able to come up with one single logical, factual and well reasoned counter argument.
Instead, they will agree with them that life just isn’t fair to them, and people should give them jobs, and there is absolutely no way that even one iota of blame for their situation could be placed on their own attitude and actions. Because to do otherwise is to invite the label “RACIST!!!” by their cohorts.
You were doing fine until you got to ‘the world will fall into your lap.” Life is not so simple and straightforward. People can be pushed aside or lose everything for reasons that have nothing to do with whether they behaved well enough or worked hard enough. Conversely, many people who are not truthful or honorable or very well educated have either schemed or stumbled their way into material comfort.
Living in NY, you just identified 80% of those who serve in NYS government, either by election or appointment. Cuomo Jr. crawled into office using deceit and social standing and why he closed down the Moreland Committee which was centering in on the corruption. Now Cuomo is under Fed. investigation while at the same time he backdoors any opponent with accusations made up of half truths and innuendo.
you make a valid point, but there are relatively few that excel due to vice or athleticism or political favoritism. The tried and true method for the rank and file is more like Trooper and Rags describe.
That black Republican candidate in Chicago tried to point this out, that their black leaders were enriching themselves, not the community.
But with our president making heroes of guys like Trayvon or this Ferguson robber, it is little wonder so many seek fame via the gangster route. Our instigator in chief is teaching them “give me a job or we’ll burn your store down … and then Lois Lerner will audit you, and Holder will investigate you for a civil rights crime”. The thuggish behavior is indeed not new.
“the world” in this case means a life outside of incarceration.
Trooper, you make a lot of sense in this great post, but – why should they listen to you when Jesse and Al have told them it’s alright not to act white? What he didn’t tell them is when they show this arrogance and ignorance even black managers and owners won’t hire them. I have hired honest and hard-working illiterates who were grateful for a job and were very loyal. It’s the person who has that not-a-real-high school education who is the problem. These are the ones who tell you “I’ll work harder if you pay me more”. I immediately provided them an opportunity to find a higher paying job.
Eventually, most people with native intelligence stop trying to “punch water” and start looking for another way to do things. That’s sure not everyone, though. To survive in the ‘hood, a young man has to be funny, fast or mean. The fast get a shot at sports, and the mean end up dead or doing a hard stretch.
The funny ones can be made to understand that humor takes intelligence. It also requires resilience, understanding how things work, absurdities and all, and a modicum of self-confidence.
Those who can be shown their strengths can and will survive. I’ve seen it. I’ve even been privileged to helped it along.
There’s an ex-professional football player here in Houston, his name escapes me at the moment. He takes young, at-risk black men and puts them in a controlled learning environment.
They wear business suits, practice good speech and etiquette. To build confidence, he has them learn simple but significant things by rote, using techniques he teaches them. This includes the alphabet in reverse, the names of the presidents and other mind-building and -disciplining exercises. His success rate is phenomenal, but his work is not appreciated within certain “circles” because the first thing he teaches is self-reliance, accountability and responsibility.
Yes, he’s been called a sell-out, but that leaves him unfazed.
Interesting story. Good on that ex-football player. Houston is also where my experiences occurred working mostly with inner city young adults. I gave them an opportunity and many took it and many others did not. I was not a social agency and I let that be known. I could tell you many stories told to me by people who worked for me and described the act they had to play in the “hood” (3rd Ward) to survive. They didn’t live there but had to go there on occasion. Common manners were off the table – you had to be tough in everything you did. You didn’t tell people “please don’t sit on my car”, you told them “get off my ride, M-f-er”. You put your shades on before entering a store and used both hands to open the door sharply. During times of unrest, even they would take a different route home because “it was an excuse for them to rob” without repercussions. I had one supervisor whose son was show twice in four years, another whose niece was violently murdered, and one employee who was found shot to death in Hermann Park. And more. This is the reason I hate Democrats with a passion. They are the root cause of this. Conservatives need to get the message out that we are better able to solve this problem than are the Democrats. With one hand they gave them gold, with the other they took their soul.
“show” should be shot.
bravo! bravo!
dumb & dumber —- insanity = doing the same thing over & over & expecting a different outcome
take pride and responsibility for yourselves before demanding (through the use of force) I respect you.
If those kids had any sense, they would promise “hell to pay” on the rioters and criminals, not on the businesses.
I should have written “rioters and robbers and thieves”, not wanting to imply that rioters are not criminals.
Some of the businesses that want to rebuild will not be able to. Many insurance policies exclude(in writing) damage from “civil disturbance”, AKA rioting and looting..
I’m sure our government can fix that racist policy with a law.
A law based on “disparate impact”?
“Ferguson resident: “There’s going to be hell to pay” if businesses don’t rebuild”
Interesting approach to “incentive”. Uh, what about: “Our community is pledging to patronize any new store or rebuilt store in our community”?
Oh, yeah, silly me: “Holder’s-People Entitlement Syndrome” (HPES).
Entitlement syndrome goes back, way back, before Eric Holder was even born.
Since they can drive miles out of the way to access products and services, why can’t they get jobs that are miles away?
Makes me want to say “Oofah”. (I’m not sure where that originated. Growing up in Rhode Island I used to hear itt used to indicate exasperation.)
One of the most discouraging things is that it’s apparent these guys (and those who share their mindset) have never left the plantation at all, and they’re not cognizant enough to see that. Instead of looking to the massa for their daily bread, they’re relying on the Democrat politicians who will happily supply them because it’ll keep “these n****** voting Democrat for a hundred years.”
Plantation massa – Democrat politician: Same old s***, different boss ~
Ferguson clearly needs a $25 per hour minimum wage and guaranteed jobs.
Let them look to Al Sharpton to rebuild.
I always find it interesting when folks who have decided to place tattoo’s on their faces complain about not being able to “get a good job” or “get a job”. To me facial tattoo’s are a pretty clear sign that you have given up on being successfully employed.
I can not tell you how many times I have tried to explain to my nieces, nephews and friend’s kids about the “life decisions” they so casually make. One of the biggest is tattoos. Getting exposed tattoos is very much a life affecting decision. It has less affect the older you are but it always has an affect. I try to tell them “no CEO has neck tattoos”. Getting one will affect what you do and where you go. If you just HAVE to get a tattoo, get one that can be easily covered up. Most people that you will interview with will not look favorably upon exposed tattoos. Just a fact of life. Why shut down so many future options in that way?
The reason the locals got all upset over the MB shooting is because they don’t want to be shot when their out robbing, raping, dealing and assaulting. That’s the reason they were so upset over the Trayvon shooting.
I am sure that the entrepreneurs among them will recognize the opportunity presented by the unmet needs of the community, and will risk their capital in meeting those unmet needs. Any resemblance of the remodeling and new construction to easily defended bunkers will be purely intentional and by design.
In the meantime, those renting apartments will move on to locations that have better amenities, such as convenient, nearby shopping and other local services. Others who own homes may realize that they will not be worth what they borrowed to own them for at least a few decades, default on their mortgages, and add to the death spiral. Can you spell “Detroit”?
Eventually, you will read stories of the “new urban pioneers” taking advantage of the low real estate prices as they move back into the blighted area because it so “convenient”, understanding that the ability to go elsewhere via automobile obviates the need to obtain quality goods and services locally without the inflated prices that reward the local risk.
Let them burn down the non-existent buildings and stores. After all, in their postmodern/ghetto-mindset world, they can create those buildings in their mind…