Looting is the only rational response to the repeated killing of black & brown men by capitalist municipal power. And it’s the only way to create real change.
Consider this… an underclass has no means to advocate for itself. Peacefully protest, kneel, rap about it… whatever, it doesn’t change anything. There is no way for black & brown members of low income communities to engage with the police, who are so often an occupying & adversarial presence in their communities, on solutions to injustice. “Dignity” just isn’t a word in the capitalist dictionary, & police fundamentally protect property & enforce the capitalist order of society, so dignity is not itself a justification or starting point for demanding change.
In a functioning capitalist society, therefore, looting is the way in which a voiceless underclass can transfer their grief to the capital class, in order that the capital class can engage with municipal power & functionally advocate for solutions to community problems. In other words, Target should be on the phone with the police department saying, “You guys have to get your shit together & reform the department because whenever you guys fuck up, it’s our windows that get smashed, it’s our stock room that gets emptied out, & it’s our insurance premiums that go up.” Because that is the language of capitalism. Capitalism doesn’t hear, “Please, for the love of god, stop shooting us.” It only hears about bottom line accounting & lost tax revenue. It hears “Reform the police department or the business community is going to get behind a mayor or a councilperson or a commissioner or a police chief whose priority is truly restoring peace to our neighborhoods by ending the unfair treatment of our black & brown neighbors.”
It’s not a double-standard. That’s simply how capitalist society is set up to be. It’s not polite, but capitalism isn’t polite. Offshoring jobs to foreign sweatshops isn’t polite. Union busting isn’t polite. Private equity firms aren’t polite. Collateralized debt obligations aren’t polite. So why should the underclass, as an exception to the rules of capitalism, have to be polite?
Under capitalism, we are taken from daily. Whether it’s hidden fees in complicated transactions, market manipulation on Wall Street that may impact our retirement accounts, or corners cut on the manufacturing of the products we buy in order to increase profit margins. Just because there are no broken windows involved doesn’t mean it’s not looting. And the class-action & the anti-trust lawsuits don’t come anywhere close to making us whole. So there is a precedent within capitalism for this type of behavior.
The situation is such that black & brown members of low income communities are told time & time again not only that their voice doesn’t matter, but that their bodies don’t. And each time someone is suffocated by cops on the hot pavement or gunned down in a traffic stop, it’s just reiterated. At the same time, these communities where the education & the arts & even sports are underfunded, the dominant messages that they’re exposed to are capitalist. It’s consumerism. It’s… if you don’t want to be worthless, get yourself a pair of Jordans & an iPhone. Not only are they worthless, they lack access the to the things they’re told are valuable.
So when a black man is gunned down for being a black man, what’s his community to think except, “Well, if I know based on recent history that we’re not going to get justice, & if I know we’re not going to be treated as fairly as everyone else or receive the same opportunities as everyone else, I’m certainly owed SOMETHING & if all I can get out of this is a pair of Jordans & an iPhone, that’s what I’m going to get.” Or maybe, “If society is telling me that I don’t matter, & that only products matter, maybe if I get the Jordans & the iPhone I will be worth more & I’ll be seen & maybe I won’t get shot dead in the street.” Or maybe they’re just angry & they’re lashing out at capitalism by smashing the windows of its representatives in their neighborhood.
Either way, they’re responding in ways that they’ve been trained to by capitalist society, & it’s productive in that it pushes the capital class to advocate on behalf of the underclass to create positive change within the community. But only if the capital class understands it’s role in the community & in greater society.
The anti-looting rhetoric isn’t pro-business. It’s not pro-small business or pro-community. It’s pro-police & it’s anti-black & brown people. And it’s the capital class’s unwillingness to intercede on behalf of the underclass that is the broken link in this chain, that is preventing progress from being realized.
So the looting may have died down in Brooklyn Center, MN. But it is at risk of flaring up in any city where the lives of black & brown citizens are treated as disposable. And we have to, as a society, become more comfortable with the fact that if the capital class is going to be given outside influence over society, they have a responsibility to directly advocate for those whose voices are diminished in kind. Unless they do, we’ll continue to needlessly bury our black & brown neighbors. And the looting will continue.
