Yesterday, good friend and sworn enemy Greg Wyshynski made the following tweet:
Greg Wyshynski @wyshynski FYI to visiting media for Game 5 in Newark: May want to keep the "rioting" jokes to a minimum. (Link to 1967 Newark Riots)
Now, as a connoisseur of riots, protests, ruckii, rumpuses and turmoil in general, I was a little taken aback; wow, the Newark riot was so bad that you can't even joke about it? I mean, people make all sorts of riot jokes in LA and we've had 2 pretty bad riots in the last 50 years. Certainly, the Newark riot must have been like hell on Earth, right?
Wrong.
| Newark Riots (1967) |
Watts Riots (1965) |
Rodney King Riots (1992) | |
| Deaths | 26 | 34 | 53 |
| Wounded | 725 | 1,032 | 2,000+ |
| Property Damage | $10 million | $40 million | $1 billion |
| Arrests | "close to 1,500" | "3,438" | "A lot" |
| Song About Riots | N/A | "Trouble Every Day" |
"April 29th, 1992" |
Now, the Newark Riots are a lot cooler than that embarrassing display of douche-baggery that took place in Vancouver because the Newark Riots were a race riot, the 2nd coolest of all riots.* So were the Watts & Rodney King Riots. But the scope in LA is far bigger and therefore better than the Newark "riot," if you want to call it that. We had more deaths, more wounded, more property damage (although that's skewed by the fact that everything is better and therefore more valuable in LA) and more arrests. Even the songs about our riots are cooler. It's clear that LA riots > New Jersey riots, especially the 1992 riot (which is to riots what the Staples Center is to arenas).
*Riots, by coolness:
1) Prison
2) Race
3) Food & Bread
4) Police
5) Actual sports riot
6) Student
7) Quiet
8) Religious
9) Stupid Vancouver baby riot
The numbers are even more pronounced if you do some advanced statistical analysis. I had Gabe Desjardins* break down the murder/day ratio and the numbers are striking:
Newark Murders/Day- 4.33
Watts- 6.8
Rodney King- 8.83
Look at that! Only 4.33 murders per day. That's that East Coast work ethic for ya! No wonder your businesses all left. Meanwhile, the LA rioters are putting their backs into their knifings and, as you can see, are on an upward trajectory with their rioting. I project that by 2025 Los Angelenos will be murdering an impressive 17 1/2 people a day in the Where The Fuck's Our Water Riots. City of the future, ladies and gentlemen!
*No I didn't
As you can see, Newark is pretty lame. Hell, the Newark Riot wasn't even the coolest riot in 1967. It's a poser riot. The East Coast saw LA being all cool and erupting in racial disharmony and wanted to be one of the cool kids. It's exactly like when I went to a hockey tournament in Philadelphia in 2007 and everyone was wearing Hollister 2 years after it was cool, except instead of t-shirts adorned with the names of places I visit every day it's arson & murder. Jeez, East Coast, can't you let one thing we do go by without shamelessly ripping it off?
Newark, stop being babies. Your riot wasn't that great. Your riot is to the Watts riot as Atlantic City is to Las Vegas. There's no glitz, no glamor, just a cheap knock-off that smells terrible. Here's some advice; next time you have a riot, your plan of action shouldn't be:
1) Evacuate all white people
2) Repeat step 1
You're supposed to do this:
1) Evacuate all white people
2) Let Mexicans move in and let them distract each other enough that they don't notice all the white people leaving
3) Everybody goes to a Dodger game
In conclusion, Newark sucks, even at being a terrible place to be. LA , once again, is the best. We're #1! We're #1! We're- hey, where did my television go?
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