Forget "Looting." Capitalism Is the Real Robbery.

 

Forget "Looting." Capitalism Is the Real Robbery. 

 

 

This morning the president of the United States threatened state-sanctioned murder in response to “looting,” laying
bare the way in which white supremacy, capitalism and the state work
together to violently repress people who defend Black life.

But Trump’s angry outburst is not the only blatantly racist response
we should be interrogating. We also must confront the way in which both
conservatives and liberals have responded to the Minneapolis uprisings
by condemning “looting.”

Protesters in Minneapolis and around the country are rising up
against a lynching and other forms of state violence. How should we
respond to a lynching? Should our goal simply be to publicize it, in the
hope that such publicity will generate condemnation and prevent future
lynchings? This logic is flawed, in part, because lynchings thrive off
of spectatorship. For white supremacists, the act of killing is also an
act of fellowship and opportunity for indoctrination.

Simply spreading images of racist killings and asking the state to
stop killing us is not going to stop them. (In fact, while it’s
important to publicize the fact that these killings are occurring,
sometimes the spread of such images also galvanizes white supremacists.)

And so, for some who oppose racist killings, watching the videos,
waiting to vote, and marching in protest feels like enough. But for
others, more intervention is needed. The murder of George Floyd by
Minneapolis police comes on the heels of the killings of Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia, and Breonna Taylor in
Louisville, Kentucky. These killings were committed by current and
former law enforcement. Understandably, outrage is growing.

We should expect uprisings. We should expect property to be damaged,
as people rise up against the racist systems complicit with racist
violence. Many of the people taking part in these revolts have decided
that respecting property is not more important than respecting Black
life. There is an awareness that if the law doesn’t respect Black life,
then the law itself cannot be relied on for protection or given undeserving respect. So, as protesters are being accused of “looting” and “rioting” in Minneapolis or anywhere else, this time demands that we reflect on the systematic robbery of Black America.

Corporations in the United States, again, have walked away with an
unprecedented and astronomical amount of money in 2020. With no
accountability in sight, there was little to no opposition to their
monumental robbery. They were handed trillions. Politicians working in
service to the corporate elite — and afraid of appearing opposed to a
deal that would largely benefit Wall Street — pushed it through. Of
course, the deal left many vulnerable people in the dust. No changes
were made after the unresolved debt crisis of 2008 that
brutalized people around the world with the starvation we know as
austerity. Cuts to social needs have fallen on the public undeterred
while the rich continuously grow richer than they’ve ever been.

 

Police stand guard outside of a Target store on May 28, 2020, in St. Paul, Minnesota.
SCOTT OLSON / GETTY IMAGES