Wweek.Com Readers Speak On…

"Police Protesters Demand Reform In Portland," April 10

"…For all their passion, why hide your identity? Perhaps it's because while these folks are busy seeking to reform others, they fail to first take a look in the mirror. Or maybe it's because they actually did look in the mirror and didn't like what they saw…cloaking their own culpability in the rhetoric of righteousness.… It just amazes me that "the public" takes a dump on the sidewalk and then complains about how the person that has to clean it up deals with it! So why don't you all put some effort into addressing the cause and not the effect…? Perhaps the answer is because if you did that, YOU might be the one that has to change!" —"BigGame James"

"I would cover my face too. The police have more power to harass others. We, the people, don't have the same resources that police have. So police are obviously much more protected than your ordinary citizen." —"PDXBlueCoveredInRed"

"In a surveillance state, and a spectacle society that depends on trite class line details and racial pinning down of already marginalized groups, the mask is a way to stand anonymously, and speak your truth in the face of the ridiculous splendor of identity crisis. We are lawyers, chefs, doctors, parents, siblings, lovers, bus drivers, writers, musicians, we are anyone while being no one in particular. The mask protects that. Ask why so many cops are there with guns. Ask if the mask is a threat, or if you are allowing it to be the distraction from your own lack of resistance. The mask is the truth. —"Hiding the lie"

"…Protesting is a noble and important act. Rosa Parks did it, as did black college kids at a Woolworth's counter in Greensboro. Dr. King led thousands in protest, and eventually brought about great social change…. Those protests brought about real change and solved real problems. These hooligan hippie loudmouths in Portland, however, are doing nothing good. They have no issue to fight, because they don't even know what the issues are. They have no agenda to advance because an agenda would require an informed understanding, and that is difficult to obtain when one is bombed on weed. They're just punks with more in their hearts than their heads, who make up for the lack of attention from their parents and loss of control in their lives by raising a fuss in public and getting some spotlight time…. Were they to educate themselves and seek some enlightenment, the kind found in wisdom and knowledge as opposed to the kind found in a bong, then they could possibly actually do something positive for the world. Such a loss, and such an embarrassment to see my generation behaving this way." —"Jefe"

Read the original post at wweek.com/police_protests.