The Riots....Why?

Maybe instead of asking WHY...ask WHERE. Then the answer will be evident.

I think you'll also find a correlation with the level of being pissed off with the leadership in place, and the damage that was done to those cities. Santa Monica really surprised me.

California Counties & Cities by voter registration

Ok, time for a OC Politics road trip.  We all jump in the back of Bicks SUV, go to where they are paying for protesters.  Then, right in the middle of the protest, we release thousands of colorful balloons and turn it into a Pride parade as a thank you to Vile Pagan for all of his wonderful contributions.  Will the BLM attack people promoting LGBTetc?  Who knows.

Then, just as the confusion begins to subside, we break into a "Hell no, we won't go" Anti-Vietnam War chant.  We can feign Alzheimer's and tell the Antifa folks we are really trippin on some great acid.

About the time they figure out we are the real saboteurs, we can call out 100 girls from Spearmint Rhino, dressed in nothing but pasties.  I don't care how committed these BLM & Antifa dudes are, they will definitely forgo any protest in hopes of getting a free lap dance.  The non-lesbian females will be disgusted at how quickly their male counterparts gave up the ghost and will just leave.  The surprise for the BLM/Antifa boys is that these girls are from the Philippine franchise of Spearmint Rhino and a few have a special surprise for them if they get a bit frisky.

WELL THAT sounds like a hoot. SK80 brings the booze, and I'm in.

My sister-in-law has a liberal woman who has worked for her for 20 years and a younger sister who thinks she is liberal.  I describe her sister that way because she is a sweet, agreeable woman who lives in Brentwood, so she sometimes repeats things that her friends told her as if they were her opinions.  If you take the time to talk and dig down to what she believes, she actually has core values that are right of center.

My sister-in-laws employee was all ginned up about joining the protests with one of her sons and asked my sister-in-law to go.  When my sister-in-law declined and made a comment about having to work to pay the extra taxes and insurance that will be needed to pay for the riots, the woman said that was a racist comment.  It nearly ended their 20 year history together until the employee later apologized.

To answer your question, both of these women believe they are protesting to stop racism.  Both are surrounded by folks who ignore statistics and believe the police are killing unarmed black men willy-nilly.  These two aren't bad people, but are being influenced by others they trust and aren't doing any research or logical thinking for themselves.  Until they think for themselves, they fall into the useful idiots category.

This is the closest I got...

Probably way to much to text but here are a few starting with police.
1. Screening. Should have a racial profile. Background checks do not dig into the depth of individuals.
2. Police awareness should have to have yearly training. Just like us coaches. Have an independent group come in and review arrests. Both who you arrested and how they were arrested. I can track how many tickets you write but not on who? Officer Bick, it seems 75% of the people you pull over or arrest are black? Ahh they are the only ones that commit a crime? All pull overs, write ups and arrests should be documented with race.
3. We all know the officer in question had 19 complaints about force. How about at 3, 5, 10 hell 15 maybe that guy should be being reviewed just a little. If so many people are claiming foul and we do not have a policy in place to get answers for it there will be a problem in time.
4. Police are not above the law they are the law their standards should be much higher. No different than me as a head coach and teacher. Do we have a policy for racial language? I do. Do we have a policy for force? I do ? How about the joke of probable cause. We might want to readjust that just a little.

I suggest listening to those who are trying to tell you why they're protesting. You'll probably find that the feeling that nobody is "listening" is part of their complaint.

One of the reasons you haven't heard it expressed in 'reasonable, rational" terms is that protests like this don't happen until people are driven to emotional extremes. Let people calm down and then listen to what they have to say and believe them.