'A riot is the language of the unheard' -Martin Luther King Jr.

Quotes don't usually make me think for this long, but this short quote by Dr King, has me thinking and questioning alot of things.

In only three days, we've witnessed the mass destruction of our city by a group of very confused, angry and hurting people. I say people to express the fact, and break the media notion that those who are rioting are "youths" and "thugs". The oldest person arrested by police who was caught looting was 45.

'A riot is the language of the unheard'. What is it that we haven't heard? What is it that we are failing to hear? These are the question's we ought to be asking before we call for the blood of these people to be spilled. Who and what have we become as a people when we think "an eye for an eye" is the way to live? [and here I'm speaking to both sides].

I'm not condoning the violence - and I want to be extremely clear on that, but what I am saying is, it's not as simple as many of the middle-class men who run this country are making out. Many of the people we see looting and rioting come from very poor backgrounds, live in extremely run-down places, they come from broken homes, have been abused, mis-treated, ignored and branded by society as "thugs", "loosers", "a waste of space". They've been told they have no futures, verbally and by the actions of this coalition government - how would you react?

So we Tweet, blog, and create Facebook statuses about all the wrong things these people are doing - but how much time and energy did we dedicate to them or their [broken] families beforehand? The attitude of: "those losers will sort themselves out" is one that has led us right to where we are.

What has happened in London should be a stark reminder to us, that at the core of every human being there is the need and desire to love - and to be loved. It's quite simple "do as to others as you'd have them do to you". For far too long the rich have lived at the expense of the poor.

Don't look down on the "youths" on your television screens - pity them and have some compassion, you have NO idea what road they have walked, NO idea what they have seen or experienced, NO idea why they are the way they are.

This will never stop until the government and those involved with the riots enter into dialogue. Until then.......this violence will continue.