“While we support and appreciate the public’s right to protest in the face of unjust and unfair situations and thank the vast majority of protesters who came out in Cleveland and have made their voices heard peacefully,” wrote Cleveland City Council leadership, (Kevin Kelley, Phyllis Cleveland and Blaine Griffin), in a statement. “We love the city of Cleveland and that’s why we have no tolerance for those using this tragedy to commit criminal acts. There is a difference between protesting and criminal activity.”
Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish, ever the servant of and spokesman for the Chamber of Commerce set, arrived online to say more or less the same thing.
“All across our country we have seen peaceful protests turn violent and ravage the communities we hold most dear,” he wrote. “In our own downtown Cleveland many businesses, restaurants, and organizations were devastated by the riots last night. Some may not recover. We must remember that this is our community and that business owners of all races are being deeply affected by the destruction. I fully support a peaceful protest and encourage you to express your desire for change. I ask that you remain peaceful and remember that when we riot we harm our friends, families, and neighbors.”
Setting the patronizing tone to the side—”when we riot,” Lord give me strength—comments like these articulate a hierarchy of values that has chaperoned many Clevelanders to the very brink of their breaking points. Anyone waving a sign and chanting “No Justice, No Peace” on Lakeside Saturday might have been inclined to remind Budish that the communities they hold most dear have been ravaged, too: not by riots but by publicly funded police departments. They might have tapped Kevin Kelley on the shoulder, ahemmed, and told him the system which prioritizes the integrity of downtown windows over the lives of Black people is the same system that has provoked some of them to smash those windows with baseball bats.
Only in a city like Cleveland, where performative self-love is a cherished export—indeed, where public relations has become one of government’s chief functions—would it be taken for granted that having no tolerance for Saturday’s vandalism is the natural corollary of loving the city, (that is, loving its central business district).
For the people demonstrating in the streets, a much more logical formulation would be: “We love the city of Cleveland, and that’s why we have no tolerance for our police department killing Black people and getting away with it.”
Windows were indeed broken at downtown Cleveland businesses Saturday night. Several stores were looted and vandalized. Business owners and residents alike took to social media to convey what scanned like real fear and anxiety. (That’s not to be diminished.)
But it’s important to remember that the actions of these late-night looters occurred only after a large afternoon protest turned chaotic on the steps of the Cuyahoga County Justice Center when police began firing tear gas canisters and flash grenades into the crowd. The fear and anxiety at street level, with all due respect, was orders of magnitude more acute than that which may have afflicted second-floor apartment residents locking themselves in their bathrooms. (Again, that’s not to discount their fear; only to put it in perspective.)
The window-breaking sprees resulted in the arrest of 65 people, according to the county, many of whom were alleged to be from out-of-state and all of whom are now being held at the same county jail which has been a hotbed of COVID-19 and was the site of nine deaths over seven surreal months of government inaction in 2018 and 2019, grim realities that (while we’re on the subject) have inspired peaceful, and largely ineffective, local protest.
Still, according to the enlightened local takes, the Saturday evening vandalism undermined the legitimacy of the Saturday afternoon event. This is a familiar, in fact almost default, take because our society has bent over backwards to beat into our skulls that businesses have more rights than human beings do. Look at Budish’s language. He talks about downtown businesses like they’re relatives with cancer. Messages like these, incidentally, from Cleveland’s so-called progressive leaders, are only a few shades shy of Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk’s, a few days ago.
“If you loot, riot, and destroy you lose all moral credibility, in my eyes, to protest injustice,” he wrote.
Again, I think that’s more or less the standard take in Cleveland. And the response has been extreme. Such is the sanctity of downtown businesses, (and/or the strength of their lobby), that Mayor Frank Jackson and Police Chief Calvin Williams have made certain there would be no sequel. They announced a curfew shortly after midnight Saturday which was scheduled to last through the night and then begin again at noon on Sunday. It has now been extended through Tuesday evening. Those spotted outdoors will be subject to arrest, and all vehicles downtown will be towed. State troopers promptly set up shop at highway exits downtown and points of ingress on the near east and near west sides. The city was thrust into a state of confusion and annoyance, set to the antic tune of howling sirens, circling helicopters and buzzing amber alert notifications.
But there was joy Sunday morning, too, if you happened to hop on social media. The good news was that Clevelanders came together to clean up Saturday’s mess. Saturday had been a “sad day,” according to the consensus. But Sunday morning revealed the true nature of Cleveland.
In a Facebook post, downtown restaurant owner Doug Petkovic expressed a version of the same sentiment: “Yesterday was a sad day for many downtown small businesses like ours, but when arriving downtown and seeing what Cleveland really is, brought tears to my eyes. This community is so awesome, I couldn’t believe what I saw. People from all over Greater Cleveland out cleaning up broken glass and putting the city back together. This is the Cleveland I know, this is the Cleveland that I fell in love with. Windows will be replaced. We will all open back up. Cleveland will be stronger.”
Speaking for myself, there was something extremely gross about the way this cleanup effort was being celebrated and taking center stage. (I don’t mean to belittle the losses of the businesses or to disparage the neighborly folks who pitched in. I honestly think that’s great.) But the exultant, tearful postings were a little too civic-pridey on the heels of an enormous demonstration which was suddenly taking a backseat. A new narrative was taking shape: Vandalism had invalidated the protest. The cleanup effort had redeemed it.
Except now, the central message was a generic broadside about the strength and pluck of Clevelanders and not a unified demand for racial justice. The city’s “true colors” were not black and brown, as it turned out.
It’s not that this joint cleanup effort shouldn’t be praised on specific grounds. What’s bothersome is that it immediately was trumpeted by leaders and social media tastemakers as evidence of a true or real Cleveland. This reinforced the idea, by implication, that the vandals of the night before were either “outside agitators” or else illegitimate residents. No true Cleveland-til-I-die homie would ever dream of looting Colossal Cupcakes! No sir! And in an echo of comments from public leaders, this commentary offered no introspection whatsoever about what might have caused the destruction in the first place.
That introspection is required—POUR Cleveland has provided the closest thing to a PR roadmap—and might yield the realization that, agree with them or not, there are valid tactical and moral reasons for the destruction of private property. (Don’t shoot the messenger!)
Recall, for example, that Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin, the guy who killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for nine straight minutes, even after Floyd protested that he couldn’t breathe, indeed even after Floyd no longer had a pulse, was arrested only after a night of white-hot rage and destruction in the Twin Cities. It’s impossible to know whether authorities would have taken the hint and charged Chauvin with murder if the city’s residents had only peacefully and politely protested for a few hours. But residents’ rage, which took the form of literal flames, achieved an outcome that is almost never granted in American cities: a gesture toward police accountability.
In Cleveland, one sign I saw Saturday was inscribed with the reminder that “power concedes nothing without demand.” And given the apathy of local political leadership, to say nothing of the culture at large, in the face of demands from Black people in recent years, it’s perfectly natural that these demands have escalated, that they have asserted themselves in ever more striking ways to capture public attention. (Kneeling during the national anthem didn’t seem to work, for example.) “You’ve got to hit them where it hurts,” one protester told me during demonstrations after the acquittal of officer Michael Brelo in 2015. “The pocketbook.”
Reading comments from local political leaders, you’d be forgiven for thinking that protesting was an end in itself. In their conception, protesters “make their voices heard peacefully” for an hour or two on a weekend afternoon and then drive home. (In truth, this is how it goes much of the time.) But no organizer or regular protester I know is doing that exhausting work for their health. They’re certainly not doing it for fun. This is maybe overkill to specify, but these folks are protesting something in particular—police brutality, inhumanity at the county jail, school shootings—and are doing so to achieve certain ends. Sometimes, “making your voice heard peacefully” is enough to raise or sustain awareness about an issue, and that’s a sufficient outcome. Other times, that’s nowhere near enough. City Council leaders might be shocked to know that often, the difference between protesting and criminal activity is entirely a matter of perspective. In fact, there’s a huge genre of protest action that constitutes a gray area they might be interested in revisiting. It’s called civil disobedience.
Looting Geigers’ and Heinen’s and breaking windows along Euclid Avenue may not, of course, have been a rigorously conceived tactical maneuver to achieve certain ends. It’s probably more likely that this destruction was the result of both rage and impatience built up over many years, and knee-jerk hostility to the day’s violence from police.
In that case, there’s a moral question worth considering, though it’s way too late to do so cogently here. I’d only invite those clutching their pearls over the property destruction—which was extensive, there’s no doubt—to consider the property destruction that occurs at the hands of largely white sports fans after championship victories or before Browns games. (As many others have noted, the concern for private property tends to correlate proportionally with its destruction by Black people. Destruction of Black private property was a national pasttime for decades, lest we forget, a popular tactic to ensure that they remained out of white neighborhoods.)
Whether the window-breaking and the looting was justified or appropriate can be talked about. But insinuating that this destruction was perpetrated by outside agitators, bused in from God knows which frothy imaginary anarchist farm system, minimizes the legitimate anguish that Black Clevelanders—real, flesh-and-blood Clevelanders—have experienced at the hands of local police for years.
Tanisha Anderson. Timothy Russell. Malissa Williams. Tamir Rice. Try to imagine watching all of them die at the hands of Cleveland police with such minimal accountability in the aftermath. With such slow and painstaking reform. Try to imagine living in Cleveland and watching the police mock and resist that reform to such a degree that they voted to endorse Donald Trump for president in the explicit hopes that he’d overturn the Consent Decree. Try to imagine living in that environment, and then losing your job during the COVID-19 pandemic, and then watching Derek Chauvin keep his knee on George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes.
“When the state so profoundly undermines its own legitimacy, the cost of responding in kind is defined by new calculations,” wrote Zak Cheney-Rice, in New York Magazine, last week. “If a life means nothing, why should a store window or a TV? Indignation, economic desperation, and opportunism mingle in novel and combustible ways.”
That combustion was evident in Cleveland Saturday, and failing to properly identify (and then work toward remediating) the various accelerants will have compounding negative effects. An eternal curfew simply will not do the trick.
I watched the protest transform from a huge spirited demonstration to a violent encounter Saturday. It’s my belief that a number of factors contributed to the ultimate devolution. Among them: the size of the crowd, the weather, the anger, the momentum generated by Friday night protests elsewhere, the presence of individuals who were primed and prepared to engage with police. All of these factors were cocked and pulled by the economic precarity the pandemic has produced. I believe, therefore, that some measure of vandalism was inevitable. Maybe some banging and bashing on the Justice Center. Maybe some “ACAB” graffiti. Maybe even some broken windows in the Warehouse District. Maybe a lot more.
But I firmly believe that the police were the final, most destructive element in this combustible mixture: the match. If not for their dramatic escalation, if not for their indiscriminate use of pepper spray, tear gas, flash grenades and rubber bullets, I believe the worst of Saturday night’s destruction could have been avoided.
Still, the damage was done. And it was good that downtown residents promptly assembled to clean up the glass and help the businesses board up their broken windows. A version of that same energy and urgency is required now: to curb the violence of police, to punish them for their transgressions, and to begin the long and arduous journey of admitting to and atoning for the wounds that police violence and white silence have conspired to tear open in Cleveland year after year after year after year.
***
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This article appears in May 27 – Jun 2, 2020.
Scene cares more about chastising the same public that they’re begging from than paying their employees.
There’s no greater example of spoiled childish behavior.
Sadly, all our illustrious local leaders such as Taxin Jackson, and thief Budish care about, is taxing their way on us workers and property owners so that they can line their pockets with more and more of our hard-earned tax money!!!
That is all they care about!!! Time to recall both of these two cooks out of office now!!!
This cop is probably going to roast and that makes me happy but, oh absolutely – the mindless destruction of other peoples property, livelihoods and lives will be sure to get you support from ‘Joe and Sally’.
Thank God I don’t suffer from white guilt.
Maybe someday Sam, you can be cured!
“Slavery ended 400 years ago bitch, “
Ah good to see the board Mensa with his/her accurate knowledge of history and/or outstanding mathematical skills has stopped by.
Timothy Russell. Malissa Williams. “
The guy and his passenger ran from the 9000 flashing red and blue lights in the rear view mirror and then tried to run over cops when finally boxed in cornered. – Sympathy zero.
BTW, Timothy Russel is responsible for Malissa Williams death by involving her in his *SECOND* willful fleeing festival.
Take the alleged racism aspects out of the protests, because the problem is really the excessive use of force by police officers of criminal suspects, not racism.
For instance, the videos of the George Floyd incident shows that the white police officers involved acted reasonably until George Floyd dropped to the ground and refused to enter the back of a police car while claiming to be claustrophobic.
The exercise of excessive use by police officers is often not the product of racism.
For instance, in Cleveland, black Cleveland police officers used excessive force to subdue, arrest, and drag away Martin Robinson, a white State of Ohio corrections officer, who was guarding a hole in the State of Ohio prison’s perimeter fence, which is located across Cleveland’s main post office and next to Cuyahoga Community College’s Metro Branch
Another example is the death of Daniel Ficker, a white man from Parma by a white Cleveland police officer, who drove to Parma while he was on duty to confront him about stolen jewelry from the white police officer’s house.
What black leaders should be doing is educating the African-American Community to comply with police orders and to use the process, which is based on the presumption of innocence of a criminal suspect, and which also allows the police to be sued when they engage in intentional or negligent misconduct.
Chris Rock, a famous black comedian, gave this advice in a skit you can watch on YouTube.
It is as relevant and good advice today as when it was made years ago– no matter what race you are.
sam allard is a public enemy. He knew this destruction was planned. They even admitted to clearing out their office in advance so they wouldn’t be looted when the mob hit the streets to destroy.
“Take the alleged racism aspects out of the protests, because the problem is really the excessive use of force by police officers of criminal suspects, not racism.”
Amen.
Thats why the “Black Lives Matter” moniker has never made a bit of sense.
About every 4 days in Cleveland alone, you have an episode of a black murdered by another black yet no protests and no riots.
How about a name change:
… against bad cops
… against discriminatory police
… Stop racially imbalanced policing
Just come up with a good name that isn’t the punchline to a joke in Cleveland every week.
Crap a couple years back you had a “Stop the violence’ rally – you want to take a guess at what happened at the ‘Stop the violence’ rally?
Sam Allard, please leave Cleveland. Go to paradise in San Fran just leave Clevelanders alone you despicable man.
Sam, I appreciate your support of the protestors this past weekend
I truly believe you should take that level of support to the next level for the good of the community.
Please post your home address publicly on Twitter and invite the rioters and looters to blow off some of their steam and engage in social justice by ransacking your home since, well, you know, that type of behavior is apparently justified and that type of loss is no big deal.
Let’s find out truly how down you are with the cause!
The name makes no sense at all, I have talked to police officers about the topic of police use of force.
They told me that what they are taught is to take immediate control of a situation.
Police officers often do so by using overwhelming force against a non-complying or resisting criminal subject.
They also told me that their first concern is their own safety and going home at the end of their work shift.
The problem with using overwhelming force, which is far more effective than using minimum force, is that it uses more force than is necessary and can result in death or injury of the non-complying or resisting criminal subject.
What the focus should be on is changing police departments’use of force policies to ban overwhelming force.
This will be difficult to do because the police and their attorneys use “the use of force continuum” concept to justify escalating force which can leap from verbal commands to deadly force in seconds.
The use of excessive force by police officers is not a product of racism, but the product of the police culture of using overwhelming force to obtain immediate and continued control of a non-complying or resisting criminal subject, which is why police officers of all races have been accused of using excessive force.
Police place a much higher priority on their safety than they do on the safety of a criminal subject, who in theory is supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Everything is usually o.k., until something serious, like an unintended death occurs, but this is the risk that police officers take when using excessive force.
We don’t hear much public outrage about black police officers using excessive force on white or hispanic criminal subjects, but black police officers are accused of using excessive force too.
The case of black Cleveland police officers using excessive force on Martin Robinson, a white State of Ohio corrections officer, is a well-known case that resulted in a large monetary pay-out by the City of Cleveland to settle the civil lawsuit filed on it, but did not result in public protests.
Not even nine in the AM yet, and the Lone Wingnut is already ratcheting up his hatred, especiaally for Sam. Gotta say, though, that Sam is bringing it upon himself with these long-winded tirades that are only pouring gasoline on the gasoline.
Sam, you really need to STFU and chill for a while…you are only making a bad situation worse, and some fascist whack-job might even try to kill you? You wanna be a martyr? Is that it? These early morning rants of yours are not accomplishing anything positive except to fuel the haters and give them an easy target.
Where are all the rest of the lefties that used to support you here? I’ll tell you…nearly all of them have grown tired of the culture wars being fought on this platform, and they are walking away and not looking back.
Fuck the right-wing spammers here. And fuck all the restaurants and fuck all the goddamned T-shirts. Those things can be replaced and rebuilt. A man was choked to death for being black, and he is never coming back.
But, Sam, using SCENE as your personal soapbox. as you have begun to do, is only going to hasten its destruction. And when you have to move on to another city, after hasteening your own downfall, you can tell a potential employer: “I was the last editor of the last alt-weekly in Cleveland.” Big fucking deal. I’m sure they will be impressed.
One thing that’s for damn sure…they never taught you how to deal with shit like this in a Northwestern journalism school class, did they?
“Fuck the right-wing spammers here. And fuck all the restaurants and fuck all the goddamned T-shirts. Those things can be replaced and rebuilt. A man was choked to death for being black, and he is never coming back. “
So you would not mind if I rolled in to your house and trashed everything you have ever loved and worked for while i’m in my violent rage against something you had zero to do with and actually might support?
You can shove your ‘it can be replaced’ bullshit.
There is no excuse for just indiscriminately destroying other peoples stuff, livelihood and lives.
Sam, what Gentrified part of Cleveland do you reside?
It’s well past time for some chiefs of police to say, “Alright, enough. This bullshit stops, and it stops right now. If you riot and vandalize, you are going to get hurt. That’s a guarantee. You have been warned.”
And then don’t just threaten to do it, do it.
This is a HORRIBLE article! You’re literally just trying to get views and reads on this and it is so clear. Stop pushing the lives of these people under wraps! You can’t stand there and say that black lives matter but that the lives of these business people do not!!! YES – black lives do matter, without a doubt! NO – what happened to George Floyd and what happens to Black Americans around the country is not okay. But that doesn’t give excuse to destroy other people’s lives or to destroy in general. This is a horrible article. Check your facts for once
Scene once again sh*ts where it eats. Last year, Scene attacked Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse yet covers each and every concert held there. A primary function of Scene has always been its restaurant reviews. Now Scene basically says if one stupid cop from four states away does something wrong that it’s open season on restaurants already in an existential struggle from the pandemic. Why don’t you just go burn down your parents’ house for raising you to complete the cycle of stupidity. Scene is not unlike a beggar who defecates on the street and then wonders why people avoid his place of business.
L4E: I was trying to understand you and eventrying to like you. But now you are proving to be just as much of an asshole as the rest of the idiots here. Fuck Ohio City, fuck your big new house, fuck your cushy job, and fuck you, gentrifier asshole.
People want to come onto these comments and trash Scene, but Scene has been reporting on corruption for years, and they are the only independent news source left in this city now that the PD has been gutted. Scene was downtown covering the protests and taking a big risk to do it. Reporters and medics were not safe this weekend. That’s real journalism, going where the story is and getting it.
It IS messed up that people care more about t shirts and storefronts than the black residents of Cleveland. It’s messed up that people care about downtown only because of the sports teams and some bars. Everyone wants a t shirt, wants to say “I’m from Cleveland” when it’s cool or hip to do so, but how many want to grapple with the legacy of what “being from Cleveland” actually means?
Great article, Sam! one of the best you’ve written.
Fuck you and anyone that defends rioters. You obviously don’t give a shit about this city OR the peaceful protestors that showed up on Saturday. What kind of mental degenerate thinks that violence and destruction is ever virtuous. Do you know how many lower class people are sitting home today and not earning a wage because downtown is a fucking riot zone? Do you know how many stores and shops employ low wage earners that are now out of a job indefinitely? BUT NO let’s defend mostly white teens who come from wralthyy suburbs to come fuck up downtown for shits and giggles. You need a fucking reality check dude. If those rioters actually gave a shit about black lives why the fuck werent they volunteering at an after school program or a fucking community outreach program? Are you out here like I was Saturday cleaning up the fucking mess that they left? Seriously how delusional must you be? DEFEND peace, but FUCK violence and destruction of ALL KINDS. It doesn’t matter who is doing it.
What the fuck? Destroying an already fragile economy, STEALING shit and then claiming that those businesses you fucked up don’t matter? Obviously your friends are all losers without a job or soon will be because a lot of those restaurants and businesses won’t be reopening. What these riots DID do though is coagulate a massive hate for your “cause”. Well done.
Looks like TownHall’s new social media management team got paid a bit extra to do some work in the comment section.
“Everyone wants a t shirt, wants to say “I’m from Cleveland” when it’s cool or hip to do so, but how many want to grapple with the legacy of what “being from Cleveland” actually means?”
The legacy of Cleveland is WE WILL GET BACK UP!
Even after a bunch of assholes decide that destroying peoples property, livelihood and in some cases, lives is an ok thing to do
I want the t shirt! – It’s going to read:
“I survived Cleveland Asshole fest 2020!”
“Looks like TownHall’s new social media management team got paid a bit extra to do some work in the comment section.”
“Yes anyone with a contrary opinion to mine must be a paid shill.”
If that fantasy gets you through the night without having to run in to you mom and dads bedroom and jump in between them for security, hey, it’s your life. (or lack thereof)
While I appreciate the writer’s problems with characterizing the response to the violence as simplistic and shortsighted, and while much of what he says is valid–I am troubled by his blindness to the fact that he is protesting the delegitimization of the voices of protest by city leaders, business owners, and others, by condescedingly deligimizing their own voices, using language that (while in parens he acknowledges some level of legitimacy to their concerns), his non-parens voice is sarcastic, demeaning, and non-self-reflective. That gives dominance to the non-parenthesized voice, suggesting the concerns voiced in parentheses are less important, less significant, and should be paid less attention to than the voices of the protest. But a business person who has just lost litereally everything they’ve worked for their whole lives in the violence will only feel insulted and condescended to by this writer. He therefore comes off as being the very thing he is complaining of: someone who dismisses the pain of one group at the expense of the other group, no matter that he attempts to acknowledge that pain–but always in a bracketed manner. As a former copy editor for your very magazine (look me up–my name is Lisa Gordon), I would have advised you to quell the sarcasm and condescending language and balance this piece by replacing “No, YOU’RE the bad guy!” accusations with a sense of empathy for the pain of all people involved in these events, including the fear experienced by police, many of whom have likely never encountered a crowd as overwhelming as this one in such incedniary times. This is not to legitimize police wrongly firing tear gas when it isn’t warranted–it is, however, to suggest that the police who acted yesterday aren’t Nazi henchmen about to execute everyone in the crowd, which your language almost implies in its angry, accusatory tone. Hint: maybe there aren’t always bad guys. Maybe there are people who cannot see the pain of others. Maybe there are people who act impulsively and later regret it. Maybe all these people are not to be objectified, freeing a writer to insult and condescend to them, getting back at those he doesn’t side with, but maybe a writer can learn to see through the eyes of the many instead of the eyes only of those he personally deems to have a legitimate voice. (Note–used my partners account to post this–I am indeed Lisa Gordon).
Small businesses are the heart and soul of Cleveland. Places like Colossal Cupcakes shouldn’t be terrorized and looted. It absolutely sickens me that you are excusing the criminal scum who took advantage of a peaceful protest while demonizing those that are outraged over it.
Memo to Shiwaku Seven
u r an Anchor ⚓baby 🏳️🌈seeking to secure citizenship or legal residency in Amerikkk
Kissing the azz of MAGA won’t get u birthright citizenship………………….
Burn baby Burn 🔥🔥🔥
Wow, I wonder how much these right-wing trolls are paid to post here. Scene needs to do some serious editing of these posts. You should not allow trolls to take over your comments. I want to give you guys money to support your work but if you are going to allow right-wing trolls to take over and spew hate on your website I may not do that.
We keep hearing about “400 years of injustice” as a cause for disenfranchised, urban African-Americans to riot in almost every major American city. But take a look the country’s inner city neighborhoods where many angry African American people live. The one thing they have in commom? Having been run by Democrats for 50+ years.
When will the Democrats be called out for the disservice to these impoverished people? Even before these riots, Democrats have done nothing for these people, as evidenced by the high rates of crime, poverty, drug use, and gang activity in these Democratic strongholds.
When will the DEMOCRATS be held accountable for what they have created over the last 50 years? Have they solved and problems? Have things improved?
Look at the last 50 years to see the cause of the problem, not the last 400 years.
Here ya go Squid, this is from above for another pool little guy but it looks like you could use it too!
“Yes anyone with a contrary opinion to mine must be a paid shill.”
If that fantasy gets you through the night without having to run in to you mom and dads bedroom and jump in between them for security, hey, it’s your life. (or lack thereof)
Thank you, Sam, and some of these mean-spirited, tone-deaf & clueless comments emphasis the truth of what you wrote. The windows will be repaired; Tamir will still be dead.
No Excuse to act like an animal…………
The legacy of Cleveland is that of the “MASON-DIXON LINE”…………………..
The Huffington Post ranked Cleveland as the most segregated city in America
Cleveland has been on the top 10 list for years,
U CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh the good old Huff post! How awesome.
Did they happen to mention anything about the murder rate being greater than Chicago on a per capita basis and who the primary perps are by about a 3 to 1 ratio?
So maybe this segregation thing is a self preservation thing?
WOW, THE HONKYS ARE PISSED, HUH? Looks like alll the nerves have been hit! You know what that means? You nailed it Sam. I have to think a lot of these people are Bobby & Tiny Tony George bootlickers because I’d hate to think Cleveland people would want to be seen as heartless, selfish & bigoted as these pearl clutchers over businesses that are more insured than your average American body, but hey, wonders never cease, do they? Racism exists. This country was founded on pillaging, raping & enslaving people who deserve every right you have, oh pale Clevelanders.
Facts & statistics show that disparity has not changed. If you praise cleaning up a mess your tax dollars pay for anyways, but dont clean up the moral & humane mess your leaders & police make in abundance, you are the problem.
Another snowflake (shocked face) – er no, but there are people here who are clearly here to do nothing but blast out hate and threaten Sam Allard.
Since when did slavery end “400 years ago”?
“Facts & statistics show that disparity has not changed. If you praise cleaning up a mess your tax dollars pay for anyways, but dont clean up the moral & humane mess your leaders & police make in abundance, you are the problem.”
Speaking of moral and humane issues, why do blacks kill each other at such an unholy rate? Did they not get the BLM memo?
No one will ever give me a straight answer to that question
Hold up I thought Cleveland scene were real Clevelanders.
If you are diluted enough to think clean up efforts took over the real message of the protest I recommend finding new people to follow on social media or new friends.
Because anyone who was actually at that protest would never for a second think that people with brooms cleaning up took away from the message.
Did looting take away from the message of the protest as well for you?
Move to Columbus.
From ‘C-mone’ above
…
HONKYS
bootlickers
heartless
selfish
bigoted
pearl clutchers
…
What!? no “Yo mama” blast?
You must be a huge hit with your 12 year old friends.
Thats pretty much the age where people who’s best life skill is farting insults out of their mouths lose their appeal.
“Because anyone who was actually at that protest would never for a second think that people with brooms cleaning up took away from the message.”
But those not at the protest thought – “What a bunch of aholes! Awesome way to get people behind your cause”
But now it’s being cleaned up and the memories of the clowns and animals and actors who took part in the circus down there will be much like a fart in a hurricane – gone.
Memo to truth_hurts ………………….
I agree that the Demo-rats r the gd problem along with their Black Bourgeois👢 bootlickers
Joe Biden will never be president and Trump will get a 2nd Term
Black folks been fighting White Supremacy for over 400 yrs Trump don’t scare👻👻👻 us
Joe Biden 1994 Crime Bill created Mass Incarceration and destroyed Black Families…..
Joe Biden is the protégé pf Strom Thurmond a devout Segregationist
2020 is the year Black folks burn 🔥🔥🔥 the democratic plantation…………………
Sam Allard speaks the truth.
Those who criticize the destruction of property would do well to remember that today is the 99th anniversary of the racial massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when a white mob burned 35 square blocks of black-owned property, destroyed 1200 homes, and killed over 300 black Tulsa citizens.
White racial violence against black bodies, homes, businesses and neighborhoods has been a core feature of this country from its beginning. Any appraisal of what is currently happening needs to first reckon with this history.
Crazy how out of nowhere MAGA hats get their marching orders from Trump about Antifa, despite there being NO ANTIFA PRESENCE AT ALL.
Great perspective , Sam!
Mostly loved reading the comments from all the scum that have the time to yell at you for having an opinion.
Keep up the good work. The only taste of success some people get is to take a bite out of you.
Dumpster fire of an article.
Whiteness is multidimensional, complex, systemic and systematic:
It is socially and politically constructed, and therefore a learned behavior.
It does not just refer to skin colour but its ideology based on beliefs, values behaviors, habits and attitudes, which result in the unequal distribution of power and privilege based on skin colour (Frye, 1983; Kivel, 1996).
It represents a position of power where the power holder defines the categories, which means that the power holder decides who is white and who is not (Frye, 1983).
It is relational. “White” only exists in relation/opposition to other categories/locations in the racial hierarchy produced by whiteness. In defining “others,” whiteness defines itself.
It is fluid – who is considered white changes over time (Kivel, 1996).
It is a state of unconsciousness: whiteness is often invisible to white people, and this perpetuates a lack of knowledge or understanding of difference which is a root cause of oppression (hooks, 1994).
It shapes how white people view themselves and others, and places white people in a place of structural advantage where white cultural norms and practices go unnamed and unquestioned (Frankenberg, 1993). Cultural racism is founded in the belief that “whiteness is considered to be the universal … and allows one to think and speak as if Whiteness described and defined the world” (Henry & Tator, 2006, p. 327).
White versus Whiteness
Race is scientifically insignificant.
Race is a socially constructed category that powerfully attaches meaning to perceptions of skin colour; inequitable social/economic relations are structured and reproduced (including the meanings attached to skin colour) through notions of race, class, gender, and nation.
Whiteness is a set of normative privileges granted to white-skinned individuals and groups; it is normalized in its production/maintenance for those of that group such that its operations are “invisible” to those privileged by it (but not to those oppressed/disadvantaged by it). It has a long history in European imperialism and epistemologies (for those who are of mixed ancestry and “pass” as white, this normativity, I would assume, would not occur).
Distinct but not separate from ideologies and material manifestations of ideologies of class, nation, gender, sexuality, and ability.
The meaning of “whiteness” is historical and has shifted over time (i.e. Irish, Italian, Spanish, Greek and southern European peoples have at times been “raced” as non-white).
As a black person we shouldn’t have to tell you why most of the people in the comments are ignorant. there is years worth of articles saying the same thing. educate yourself. we cannot keep wasting energy or time with people like you who simply have no regard for black voices. period.
BLACK LIVES MATTER.
if seeing people looting stores makes you more upset than watching a cop kill a black man, please work on yourself.
caucasoid, you really ought to give up the hate and black racism and focus on becoming successful.
As an Asian-American, I don’t worry about looking different than others, because there is nothing I can do to change my physical appearance. What I can’t change, I don’t worry about, because it is beyond my control. I don’t seek equality, because I don’t want to be equal. I want to be better off than most, and I am better off than most, but this is because I planned, worked, and invested more than most. I advised you to do the same. Perhaps, if you become better off than most, you will stop hating what you can’t control anyway and appreciate what you’ve achieved. Do what you want, but remember you have a choice on whether to live a positive life or a negative one. This is good faith advice from a member of a minority in America, who overcame both black and white racism, poverty, and a very disadvantaged background.
“As a black person we shouldn’t have to tell you why most of the people in the comments are ignorant. there is years worth of articles saying the same thing. educate yourself. we cannot keep wasting energy or time with people like you who simply have no regard for black voices. period.
BLACK LIVES MATTER.”
As a white person, I have to ask, If Black Lives Matter why do you kill each other as if it were sport?
Over 130 murders in Cleveland last year – most black on black.
TALK IS CHEAP -REAL CHEAP.
Since you support the rioters and looters over the right of those who have these businesses that are getting fucked up by your fellow friends. Cleveland Scene just close up shop, you’re irrelevant and why people read your shit is beyond me. From the rest of the law abiding citizens in Cleveland we say fuck you!
“As a black person we shouldn’t have to tell you why most of the people in the comments are ignorant. there is years worth of articles saying the same thing. educate yourself. we cannot keep wasting energy or time with people like you who simply have no regard for black voices. period.
BLACK LIVES MATTER.”
As a white person, I have to ask if Black Lives Matter, why do blacks kill each other at such an unholy rate?
130 murders in Cleveland last year. The vast majority? Blacks taking the lives of other blacks.
Do you think they just didnt get the memo maybe?
Is it any wonder that Scene is on its last legs not unlike the PD? with journalist wannabes like Sam Allard, opining that the windows smashed out at Geigers and Heinens may or may not have been justified. Really, Sam? Only a fool would believe that or someone so bent on far left ideology that you cannot make sound decisions. Really, if you want to write this blather and pass if off as news, that is the pathetic Scenes choice but the real question is how much longer this rag has before its put out of its misery and merely replaced with with some free Socialist newsletter.
Yes, it’s very easy to say loss is acceptable when it’s not YOUR loss.
Some of us actually have to live with this damage, and many of us won’t have jobs, and consequently, homes to go back to because of this.
Disgusting.
Sam strikes AGAIN: Just checked this today to see what out of touch article he would spew out today. True to form— lambasting those who work hard and get things done and pay taxes to support the city and the unfortunate. REALLY the city cares MORE about tee shirts and restaurants ????????????? Clevelander’s care about both. Just happens those restaurants and tee shirts etc. give jobs and support thousands of people. Go ahead, close all the restaurants, merchants etc . then just where will the money come from to support jobs and the poor and pay taxes. Waiting for your answer SAM? PS, Amazing how EVERY single elected official and EVERY developer in Cleveland is the worst. Just AMAZING !
phenomenal article. y’all should really just get rid of the comment section on this website lmao
“As a black person …
…BLACK LIVES MATTER.”
As a white person, I have to ask if Black Lives Matter, why do blacks kill each other at such an unholy rate?
130 murders in Cleveland last year. The vast majority? Blacks taking the lives of other blacks.
APPARENTLY, MANY DIDN’T GET THE MEMO.
“Whiteness is multidimensional, complex, systemic and systematic”
So is “Blackness”. So your point is?
(Me 2020)
“we cannot keep wasting energy or time with people like you who simply have no regard for black voices. period. “
We cannot keep wasting energy or time with people like you who don’t think exactly the way we want them to so we will just stereotype them and refer to them as ignorant.
Fixed if for you.
You’re welcome.
Always amazes me that the people who rally against racism and stereotyping are the first to weaponize it
if seeing people looting stores makes you more upset than watching a cop kill a black man, please work on yourself.”
If seeing one sick bastard police officer killing a black man turns your stomach but you pay no mind when young black men kill each other by the hundreds monthly in this country, you should be telling exactly NOBODY what they should do.
“Still, according to the enlightened local takes, the Saturday evening vandalism undermined the legitimacy of the Saturday afternoon event. This is a familiar, in fact almost default, take because our society has bent over backwards to beat into our skulls that businesses have more rights than human beings do. Look at Budish’s language. He talks about downtown businesses like they’re relatives with cancer. “
No, idiot. That’s not what anyone is saying – at ALL. When you commit an act of violence – such as vandalizing and looting a completely disconnected local establishment – you and your “cause” lose all credibility. Only in the recesses of a putrid mind like those of your ilk is justice served in any way by an angry mob terrorizing a young lady who has worked long, hard hours building a cupcake business which these vile thugs saw fit to destroy in a single afternoon. How in the world can anyone even begin to justify the litany of terrible, violent actions perpetrated against the completely innocent in the name of a person they neither know nor whom they care about? I’ll make it simple for you – they can’t.
I have a simple question for Mayor Frank Jackson, Council President Kevin Kelley, Chief Calvin Williams, County Executive Armond Budish, and all the other elected officials of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. Where were you on the afternoon of Saturday, May 30th, 2020?
Sam Allard has poisoned his infantile mind with Saul alinsky, Karl Marx, mainstream media/entertainment and sports. He’s one of a million effeminate nihilist millenials that Albert Pike promised would be released on the world causing chaos. He knows what he’s doing though so fuck him.
Hey Sam. Two wrongs don’t make a right. No matter how you spin it. Killing is wrong. Racism is wrong. Nether justify looting when peacefully protesting those first two evils.
you’re an idiot- a complete idiot, I take it that you don’t own any tangible property being on l reporter’s salary these days. If some “woke” assholes burned down your dreams and life work because of one bad cop’s handling and unjust killing of a criminal. These “antifa” clowns are a small group of bad actors that need to be shut down by the rest of the law abiding population. They are just capitalizing on an ugly event to go on a shopping spree. Sporting good stores, food establishments, random houses, people’s cars, random citizens- what the fuck do they have to do with racial tensions? The vast majority of police are good actors.
The disproportionate amount of minority arrest/convictions is a result of why? Wait for it…………………because those are the fools doing the crimes! The rural and suburban parts of the country are not generally problematic. So follow the laws that we all agree upon, and you generally won’t end up in handcuffs. Pretty simple -really. Don’t make a very small minority of bad actors that on the police department, represent the “norm” of our cops. It’s just a justification some people use to gain traction and sympathy. We ALL have to follow the basic agreed upon laws of the land to make this whole thing run amicably. Black, White, Latino- we’re all in this together and we all don’t want to wake up in the morning and see our world a charred and dilapidated mess.
So I witnessed the destruction on east 4th st, and please allow me to be clear.
I saw people cheering on a man, holding a makeshift weapon in one hand, and a gallon of evan williams whiskey in his other hand,smash out the window at flannertys. I saw no people harmed but I saw a green convertible mustang rip down prospect at 60 mph into the crowd. Almost hitting 2 people and a car. I saw a black car pull up and a white arm threw a smoke bomb out onto east 4th street, and a 15 year old white kid look back with a big cheesy smile on his face. These were not protesters, they were anarchists enjoying thier mini purge. It was a party.
What i didn’t see were protest signs in this group, I saw hammers. What i didnt hear was angry rally cries, i heard cheers. What I did not perceive was a group of hurt people who wanted equity, but rather a group of emboldened vandals who were reveling in thier opportunity to smash other people’s stuff.
Did you catch any of this first hand Sam? Or did you read about it all the next day from your apartment in the flats and THEN decide to write a hit piece about people coming together to clean up thier neighborhood? Didnt notice any original photos in your article, looks you spent a lot of time on twitter though, so brave.
No comment or outrage from the Blacks that continue to buy their Nikes while China treats anyone of African descent worse than dogs as I type this.
GO FUCK YOURSELVES YOU GODLESS SOULLESS HYPOCRITE CUNTS
We’ll never give in, we’ll never quit. You don’t stand a chance.
A pox on those who not only caused these riots but on those that paid for these riots and those who cheered and promoted them. You know who you are. Karma’s going to bite you in the ass.
In less than four years, Cleveland went from wine and gold with love to black and white with crime. Shame on everyone. It’s much tougher to build something than to tear stuff down. How many voted for Obama, are complaining about Trump, but will note vote this November?
I believe that some wealthy person(s), organization, or even an enemy foreign nation is helping to plan, provide support, and bankroll these nation-wide riots.
I do not believe it is a coincidence that the Media recently focused on several different instances of African-Americans being killed by white police officers, like the black woman who was killed in the raid of her boyfriend’s home in Louisville, Kentucky, or the killing of a black jogger by the son of a former police officer, who was with him and helped chase him down prior to focusing on the George Floyd incident to shock and upset America.
There seems to be a pattern in the way protests across America turn violent, and evidence exists that indicates that the violent protests were well-planned in advance, with forward observers in the crowd to radio police movements and tactics to the mobs, medical teams, written instructions on what and when protesters are supposed to, and anti-civil disturbance control measures.
I hope the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice conduct a thorough investigation to see who or what is bankrolling this nationwide civil-wide unrest, and whether the Media or the Power Elite that controls the Media is involved.
I believe, if the goal is found to be to bring down and change the elected government of the United States, any Americans involved should be charged, indicted, tried, convicted, and punished for committing treason.
If foreign individuals or nations are involved, their involvement should be treated by the U.S. Government as planned attacks against America.
If the concern is that peaceful protestors are being met with police violence, thus further escalating the situation, then I suggest that protestors use these time-proven methods to avoid being victimized by police violence:
1. Show white skin. This is most important.
2. Openly carry a long gun. The longer, the better.
3. Do not wear a mask.
4. Wave a Confederate flag.
5. For extra protection, display a swastika.
Following these steps will guarantee that police will treat you respectfully at a protest.
Can y’all just like, go away?? I’ve heard from protestors that were downtown that the people who caused the hysteria and violence were not part of the peaceful protest going on by the “Free Stamp”. Clevelanders wouldn’t do this to their city and it’s not about “black lives”, it’s about respect and love for that city. There’s too much of both those things for that to be how people act towards the city. Black lives do matter and this country needs to be better at caring about them the way they do white lives, but this madness needs to stop too. I get that things can be replaced and lives cannot, but these riots have gone too far. Change starts with us, the people, not the government, and certainly not the media. Until we realize that the people control this country and not either of those two entities nothing will change. Right now the media and the government have total control over us and it’s time we take our power back.
Sam “Sam I am, I am so flam(bouyant), I am lame, I got to blame whitey for sumfin. I hate the way whitey cleans up after rioters and looters. Sam I am”
Kimmy Katajara ” I am programmed, I am a public school bot. beep beep whitey this whitey that”
I will never read Scene again. You are immature and obviously don’t understand the majority of Americans. Equality yes, violence and destruction no. Those T shirts and restaurants you mock represent hard working Clevelanders already devastated by the pandemic. Tear gas, rubber bullets- what did you want them to do- stand down and completely destroy? Grow up.
This article is gross and disgusting of any Cleveland resident. You are going to condemn a City coming together to clean up destruction? Not only that this article Is entirely false. Social media clearly showed looters in broad daylight yesterday and by 4pm police cars were already on fire. Protestors were trying to breach the justice center and were throwing things at officers. Yes peaceful protests were occurring but do not act like at the same time there wasn’t violence occurring. How entitled to think it’s okay to destroy other people’s livelihoods.
I take offense to you saying “real Cleveland” only cares about T-shirts. I am “real Cleveland”. I care about the safety of those people’s lives put in harm’s way by flying debris. I care about those who found themselves once again without a job, even if only for a few days. For those who say it is only stuff: let’s put all your stuff out in the street and set it on fire. I too, am wondering where were the signs? No photos showed anyone carrying a sign, so not a demonstration, but a bunch of punks terrorizing people for kicks. To the person who said I need to work on myself: don’t you dare presume to understand where I am coming from. I was outraged my that man’s death. That is, until all across the country, these thugs decided it was better to act like idiots and destroy their cities. You think you are helping your cause….newsflash: you are lessening your credibility. Please let the rest of civilization know when it is once again safe to go outside.
“…And that sucks” – what an infantile title and mentality. Allard is a child.
NONE of those arrested were out of state. These were cleveland’s own criminals.
Well, Sam, you got what you wanted. More than eighty comments, most of them angry and negative, with no end in sight. More clicks and hits and eyeballs than any story has received in a long, long time. Lots of folks riled up about your work and royally pissed-off at you and the rest of your crew.
Is that what you wanted? You asked for it, and you got it. And did it make things better in any way? You know the answer, but all you jamokes seem to care about anymore are clicks and hits. Never mind the content…it’s all about the numbers. The more people you piss off, the better.
You will end up like the PD, and Cleveland will be a no-newspaper town…maybe the biggest in the country. And after personal rants like this, who can blame people for not wanting to read them? But what the hell, nobody reads anymore anyway. Print media is dying. Maybe you can get a job in a buggy whip factory.
It strikes me as if you use Sam Allards logic that the looting and destruction may or may not have been justified, then it is possible that no matter how reprehensible the cop killing of the guy in Minneapolis, that it may or may not have been justified as well. Sam , you cannot have it both ways. But that is par for the course for Scene “journalism” which is really a wannabe porn mag based on the ads than a real news source.
A common tactic of the left is to create distinct teams during these incidents. Like here, you either support the destruction carried out by callous rioters OR you’re a racist that want blacks killed by cops.
Listen you leftist idiots, we don’t want the police killing anyone but we also don’t want you antifa scum to destroy our communities using “protesting racism” as a front for it.
Again with that WE and OUR shit? You and what army?
The GI Joes you still play with in your bunker?
AKA Mom’s basement?
Jim, if you hate SCENE that much, and you know so mucking futch anout news sources and “Real Jopurnalism”…why the hell don’t you start your own red-white-and-blue flag-waving alt-weekly magazine?
“The American: The American paper for Americans”. Has a nice beat, and you can dance to it.
Why is “riot” in quotes in your first paragraph? It’s right under the photo of a burning car.