Except the highly visible destruction and violence by its residents leave a lasting impression of what the community is actually composed and capable of at any given moment. The riots just put it on display front and center.
You can just stay indoors when the weather forecast is bad. There's no way to keep all the riff-raff locked inside while your kid walks home from school. In a place like LA, there's a lot of riff-raff. Just because there's no active riot doesn't mean the riff-raff is gone, they're just not all in a frenzy showing their true colors simultaneously. They continue to exist, and continue to be a potential risk, at all times.
What "destruction and violence" are you talking about? No neighborhood I visit or have lived in is rife with "riff-raff," and kids are still mollycoddled door-to-door.
> What "destruction and violence" are you talking about? No neighborhood I visit or have lived in is rife with "riff-raff," and kids are still mollycoddled door-to-door.
Are you wilfully ignoring the actual thread of context we're discussing? I was replying to your reply to the following:
> Just watch some of the George Floyd protest videos from LA to get a sense of what likely really concerns LA parents. No amount of snow, sleet, wind, and sub-zero temps can hold a candle to those apocalyptic scenes.
That's ONE incident that was known to be incipient, and into which you would never send children. As I said, there are typically 364+ days a year of riot-free peace prevailing. The "riff-raff" in my neighborhood consists of girls' softball players, people walking their dogs, and bicyclists. Cowering at home in fear because they might explode into violence at any moment would be a pathetic way to live, but hey... that's your choice.
You can just stay indoors when the weather forecast is bad. There's no way to keep all the riff-raff locked inside while your kid walks home from school. In a place like LA, there's a lot of riff-raff. Just because there's no active riot doesn't mean the riff-raff is gone, they're just not all in a frenzy showing their true colors simultaneously. They continue to exist, and continue to be a potential risk, at all times.