Martin Luther King once defined rioting as ‘the language of the unheard’. A youth worker interviewed after the riots had this to say, “young people don’t have a voice and it has been like that for such a long time. I have spoken to some and they didn’t regret it. To them they made a point in the only way they could.”. While the pursuit of free stuff and excitement were major motivators behind young people participating in the riots, a few young people cited anger and frustration with the current social conditions, especially police misconduct, and no outlet to express or act on those feelings as their reasons. This reasoning was more common among minority young people, a lot of which described their participation as revenge against authority figures, a means of “sticking two fingers up” at the authorities and having the upper hand, albeit temporarily.
