It's worth noting that the anarchy and rage now consuming England started with a police shooting. It was the kind of extreme law enforcement action that, whether or not it might eventually be deemed officially justified by some British court of inquiry, has become a throwaway moment in America. It happens all the time here. It gets a few minutes on the local news, if that, and we then go on about our business.
The portrayal of this spiraling upheaval by the U.S. media as somehow more akin to the austerity uprisings in countries like Greece seems a serious misrepresentation at this time. Although English news outlets are exploiting class motivations as well, the convenient splicing of the continuing horror into our own economic narrative is just wrong.
If there is anything for Americans to learn, having so unclear a picture of what actually happened leading up to the death of Mark Duggan, it may be simply be this: the English just aren't as accustomed to public killings by police as we are... yet. Nor, it seems, are they as willing as we to wait for authorities to get their stories straight.
Watching this carnage unfold in a country I love nearly as much as my own and where I spent some of my happiest days, I can't help but hear this song... repeating... over and over.
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