Riot Act

Draft In Tulsa Oklahoma on September 16th 2016, Terence Crutcher was fatally shot by Officer Betty Jo Shelbie. The police were originally notified because there was a car stalled in the middle of the road but by the end of it, a black unarmed man was murdered in cold blood. A helicopter from above captured the video where the man was shot. He was called a “bad dude”, however was he really so? No. "That big 'bad dude' was a father," his sister said after watching the video. "That big bad dude was…

No Hip In The Wild Tren Linsley Violence and chaos, is used, in conjunction with symbolic aspects, and binary opposition as literary tools, in “No Church In the Wild” to show fundamental problems with gender inequality in society, pointing out the irony that men are the ones with all the power, yet are ones who use it for violence. “No Church In The Wild” in this sense is a very overzealous example of “hipster” counterculture. The video opens with a relatively still shot of a man holding a…

parade performance in the past and today. The history of where pride parades began and the impacts of performance and corporatization in North America. Pride Parades through time have changed dramatically. What once was used as a means of protest and a riot used for the protection and fight for people’s human rights, in North American culture, has turned into a celebration. The people who are present range from “visitors to pride parades line the streets to cheer drag queens, dykes on bikes,…

Stonewall Riots The prominent philosopher Slavoj Zizek breaks down the standard definition of violence into a two-part cause and effect system. In his novel, Violence, he categorizes violence as either being “subjective”, i.e. the more physical and literal examples of violence, such as murder, riots, and similar acts, or “objective”, the systematic or metaphorical violence that has caused the subjective violence, such as systematic oppression by the government or similar controlling bodies. The…

building was set ablaze and this riot carried on for several hours before the crowd was contained. This movement quickly grew from a small group of activists into a widespread protest. (Hall, Simon. “The American Gay Rights Movement and Patriotic Protest.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 19.3 (2010): 536-562.) The Stonewall riot became known as the movement that started it all. Many claim these protests to be the beginning of resistance. After the Stonewall riots, organizations began to…

Before June 28, 1969, homosexual acts between consenting adults were illegal in all fifty states of America, which was reported in the article “The Stonewall Riots: June 28, 1969” (“The Stonewall Riots”). The Stonewall Inn is a gay bar in New York City. In 1969, it had no liquor license and held refuge for gay men and transvestites against the prejudiced police and laws. The laws were made to specifically On June 28th, these police raided Stonewall, which was not uncommon. But that night, for…

time one of the few establishments that openly welcomed the gay demographic, was raided by the police. Subsequently, a riot erupted amongst the arrested crowd – the first time that the gay population had protested a police raid. The incident incited several more violent demonstrations in the following days, which have been famously dubbed as the Stonewall riots. The series of riots are often regarded as the sole catalyst for the modern gay rights movement. Moreover, the Stonewall Inn has become…

Furthermore, riots continued into Friday, December 12th where students attacked police outside the parliament building, while police responded with fired tear gas, and issued an appeal for more tear gas after supplies ran low as the result of more than 4,600 capsules of it being released against protesters. Heavy rain that evening, however, helped subside the angry crowd. However, it wasn’t the end. The protests inspired small protests in many European cities, spreading fears of copycat riots…

The life of cosmopolitan women in late-antiquity has remained something of an enigma to scholars. Perceptions of general decadence and moral impoverishment date back to the early research of historians like Edward Gibbon, who argued that a loss of virtue-ethics plagued the secular government. Authors of the 5th and 6th centuries, like Procopius and St. Augustine, offer little to undermine that notion. One would be quick to assume that the general decline in quality of life in the late…

Stories of princesses, or empresses, or even athletes, sometimes involve a “rags to riches” scenario. A story like Cinderella, a poor girl who eventually married Prince Charming, or even Michael Oher, an NFL offensive linemen, who had nothing and now is paid several millions, portray this concept. This type of life is also true for Theodora, Empress of the Byzantine Empire. Theodora had a tough childhood, but ended up marrying Justinian the Great and is recognized as one of the most important…