Rioty: the Language of Violence

My street, cordoned off by police cars and crime tape.

This was supposed to be a December post about the violence and protests in Oakland and San Francisco, the reactions to the violence in Ferguson, Missouri. But then it became about the murders in Paris at a magazine office. And now it's about four people shot dead around the corner from my home.

But let's go back to the Ferguson protests. You remember them. They were about the other senseless violence. I didn't feel comfortable reducing such a national movement with my own little perspective.

One of my Daily Kent Stater editorial cartoons, 1980

But then the Charlie Hebdo shootings happened in Paris. I thought, as a journalist, I had a connection.

But I didn't feel comfortable writing about that, other than posting some supportive million-forwarded meme jpg graphic or crowd shot from France. Because my situation as a much safer writer couldn't compare to the horrors in Paris.