The main problem with telling people to be peaceful is that you expect them to be rational when they are seeing dead bodies in the streets and then hearing cops saying they aren’t haunted by it and would do it again.
That will spark rage and violence, even in the most rational person. LeBron should understand because he grew up in a Ferguson style environment. No one wants to see communities burned to the ground, but hopeless people feel that no one cares about them or paying attention to them so they act out. So, while I get what LeBron is saying, it is much easier to say that from the position he is currently in.
LeBron James said the decision not to indict Darren Wilson, the officer responsible for the shooting death of Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, “hit home for me” and spoke out about the violent aftermath of the announcement Monday night.
“That’s not the answer,” James said Tuesday on reports of rioting in Ferguson. “What does that do? What does that actually do? Just hurt more families, hurt more people, draw more attention to things that shouldn’t even be going on instead of people going to the family’s household and praying with them. And saying, ‘Things are going to be great.’ You know, ‘Mike Brown is in a better place now,’ and ‘Trayvon Martin is in a better place now.’ That’s where it should be. I mean, burning down things and shooting up things and running cars into places and stealing and stuff like that, what does that do? It doesn’t make you happy.”
I don’t think it makes them happy, I think there is just a frustration level that this continues to happen and it goes unpunished.