When the Grand Jury chose not to indict the former police officer Darren Wilson for any crime on Nov. 24, despite acknowledging that he shot the unarmed black teen, Michael Brown, in Ferguson, Missouri, riots broke out. And with that, facilitated by the media, thousands became obsessed with the legitimacy of the protesters and rioters, rather than the shadiness of the verdict. (And shady it was: such non-indictments are exceedingly rare—only 0.007 percent of federal Grand Jury cases in 2010, the most recent year for which data is available, didn’t result in indictments, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Though the Grand Jury in Ferguson is not federal, this is still worth noting.)

I wish to answer for the riots on behalf of those who oppose the verdict, so that those who support it have to go back to answering for racism:

 For whatever reasons, Ferguson came to represent much more than the bare incident that took place there—it came to stand at large for the issue of state-inflicted violence against black people around the country, which results in a black male getting killed by a cop or vigilante roughly every 28 hours, according to a study conducted by Ida B. Wells-Burnet and William L. Patterson’s Malcolm X Grassroots movement in 2012.

 The tension leading up to the verdict was so high that the state was forced to take the form — more explicitly than ever before in recent times — of an institution of oppression: There were peaceful daytime protests, but come nighttime, when the announcement was to be made, riot cops showed up and launched tear gas into black neighborhoods before anyone starting setting cars and buildings on fire. (This precise sequence of events has largely been ignored, except by The LA Times) So much did the balance of power relations hang on this verdict, that to smoothly solidify and perpetuate racism, the institutions of power had to give the message, transmitted by tear gas and military vehicles: “You (black people) will be kept in your place (regardless of what you were planning on doing about this).”

 The fact that force was used preemptively — or rather, that power was forced by public consciousness into a situation of using force preemptively to maintain the fundamental operation of its existence — meant that if the recipients of this message did not back home and thus accept subjugation, the only choice left was to directly confront it. Thankfully, they did.

 And the rejection of subjugation that took place that night occurred at two levels, not just with rioting as the chosen form of rejection, but necessitating — for that night at least — that precise form.

 One level of subjugation that black people in Ferguson and beyond were forced to accept or confront that night was economic: “You will be kept in your economic place of structural poverty.” The riots defied that—after all, the businesses attacked that night represent an economic system that does not exist to serve black people in this country, but only serves to maintain disenfranchisement. 

 The second level of subjugation was psycho-emotional: “You will be kept in your psychological place — you have to keep on living in a state of fear that if you step out of your house, you may be killed by the authorities. And when your kin get killed, systemically and frequently, you have to go on taking it calmly.”

 But as a commentator put it, if your family member gets killed unjustly, wouldn’t you, perhaps, throw a chair in anger or anguish?

 Now envision a scenario in which innumerable people that look like you get killed unjustly — just for looking like you — and your country’s politico-legal apparatus suggests that this is just fine. 

Given that Ferguson had become a symbol around which the entire issue of racial oppression in the United States revolved, that’s just what happened last Monday: This nation gave a retroactive thumbs up to all the unjustified killings of black people by cops that have been happening, and thereby also declared open season on an entire race.

 So, from that perspective, it doesn’t matter what the riots accomplish, even though they do actually build solidarity within communities and generate energy that can then be channeled toward other social organizing. When the system says that it’s all right to kill black people, it’s all right for black people to want to burn that system down. And when the choice — made clear by the preemptive tear gas and the presence of cops dressed for a riot — is between meekly accepting subjugation being made official and going out and defying the subjugating power, a riot’s not just all right; it’s right.