During recent riots, a sentiment I heard a lot was that looters in cities like Minneapolis were hurting their own cause by destroying small businesses in their own neighborhoods, stores owned by immigrants and people of color. I think a lot of that comes out of the civil rights movement. Weather Videos. One of the ones that's been very powerful, that's both been used by Donald Trump and Democrats, has been the outside agitator myth, that the people doing the riots are coming from the outside. So a nonviolent protest organizer will tell the police their march route. Even under those conditions, Freedom Riders and student protesters were often protected by armed guards. What about that is nonviolent? Police will stop traffic for them. That word is not strategically helpful. That's looting's most basic tactical power as a political mode of action. Those two things combined to make nonviolence a relatively effective tactic. Philly reacts after Derek Chauvin found guilty on all charges. Suddenly all these new independent nations had just won liberation from Europe, and the U.S. had to compete with the Soviet Union for influence over them. They don't attack community centers. As vaccine access grows, demand for shot decreases, Community helping to replace bullet-riddled car after boy's shooting, Gym owner launches free youth boxing program in Northern Liberties, Puppy stolen outside Philly hotel reunited with owner, Authorities believe remains are those of missing Amish teen, More body cam released in Ma'Khia Bryant shooting; officials urge patience, SEPTA train fatally strikes person on tracks, LIVE: Daunte Wright funeral: Rev. Another trope that's very common is that looters and rioters are not part of the protest, and they're not part of the movement. They're acting, you know, in a disorganized way, maybe an "animalistic" way. It makes invisible the Black people who are rising up and who are initiating this movement, who are at its core and its center, and who are doing its most important and valuable organizing and its most dangerous fighting. What would you say to people who make that argument? Rioting is not.". And also it provides people with an imaginative sense of freedom and pleasure and helps them imagine a world that could be. Help. That created the pressure for Robert F. Kennedy to write the civil rights bill and force JFK to sign it. It's just money. That doesn't make me feel safe. Now, as protests and riots continue to grip cities, she stakes out a provocative position: that looting is a powerful tool to bring about real, lasting change in society. Importantly, I think especially when it's in the context of a Black uprising like the one we're living through now, it also attacks the history of whiteness and white supremacy. It's just property. Often, looting is more common among movements that are coming from below. One Author's Controversial View: 'In Defense Of Looting' : Code Switch In her provocative book, writer Vicky Osterweil argues that looting is a tool to bring about change in … It also attacks the very way in which food and things are distributed. In Minneapolis, there was a small independent bookstore that was untouched. All Rights Reserved. But in terms of potential crimes that people can commit against the state, it's basically nonviolent. They might have shopped and been followed around by security guards or by the owner. It is true and possible that there are instances historically when businesses have refused to reopen or to come back. And the reason that the world is organized that way, obviously, is for the profit of the people who own the stores and the factories. It gets to the very root of the way those three things are interconnected. From CNN's Zamira Rahim and Rob Picheta Another one is that looters are just acting as consumers: Why are they taking flat-screen TVs instead of rice and beans? That's the thing I'm defending. It does a number of important things. This is a classic. One thing about looting is it freaks people out. As Philadelphia leaders gear up for potential civil unrest after the trial of ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, they are vowing to not repeat the mistakes they made last summer. And just last week, rioters have burned buildings and looted stores in Kenosha, Wis., following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, to which Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., has said: "Peaceful protesting is a constitutionally protected form of free speech. In your book, you note that a lot of people who consider themselves radical or progressive criticize looting. To say you're attacking your own community is to say to rioters, you don't know what you're doing. Obviously, we object to violence on some level. Like, if they were just surviving, it'd be one thing, but they're taking liquor. Can you talk about the distinction you see between the two? They are no more likely to have to provide good stuff for the community than big businesses. This story was updated on Sept. 1, 2020. Copyright © 2021 WPVI-TV. Police officers used flash grenades to disperse a crowd so the president could visit for a photo opportunity. So it was really in the U.S.' interests to not be the country of Jim Crow, segregation and fascism, because they had to appeal to all these new Black and brown nations all over the world. It's a classic trope, because it jams up people who might otherwise be sort of sympathetic to looters. Whether it was New York Gov. Live Updates: Protests For Racial Justice, Man Shot By Kenosha, Wis., Police Paralyzed From The Waist Down, Lawyer Says, A Call For Reparations: How America Might Narrow The Racial Wealth Gap, The very basis of property in the U.S. is derived through whiteness and through Black oppression, 'Guns Kept People Alive' During The Civil Rights Movement, The History Behind 'When The Looting Starts, The Shooting Starts', 15-year-old Latasha Harlins, who had come in to buy orange juice. @PlayApex I'll get hyped when you nerf the spitfire, nerf horizon and fix the audio issues, particularly for crossplay where on Xbox you don't hear Playstation players until they are looting your body. Chaos broke out in several major U.S. cities on Sunday night as rioters hijacked what had been peaceful protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody. Most stores are insured; it's just hurting insurance companies on some level. And in New York, protesters and looters defied a curfew. All the blocks around it were basically looted or even leveled, burned down. It's taken from Hindi, lút, which means "goods" or "spoils," and it appears in an English colonial officer's handbook [on "Indian vocabulary"] in the 19th century. People in the Parkside section of Philadelphia reacted after Derek Chauvin was found guilty on all three counts in the death of George Floyd. When it did work, like with the lunch counter sit-ins, it worked because Northern liberals could flatter themselves that racism was a Southern condition. It's not a home invasion either. For people who haven't read your book, how do you define looting? We are out here to protect them and to protect them from the people who are being violent." And that was a family-owned, immigrant-owned business where anti-Blackness and white supremacist violence was being perpetrated. CBSN Philly. But looters and rioters don't attack private homes. Philadelphia's local leaders have been preparing for peaceful protests but will be ready for potential looting and rioting. Watch Live. It does a double service: It both creates a boogeyman around which you can stir up fear and potential repression, and it also totally erases the Black folks who are at the core of the protests. Ultimately, what nonviolence ends up meaning is that the activist doesn't do anything that makes them feel violent. And I think getting free is messier than that. It points to the way in which that's unjust. Police say, "We support peaceful, nonviolent protesters. What are some of the most common myths and tropes that you hear about looting? Action News was outside Philadelphia City Hall as people found out about Derek Chauvin conviction. You know, one of the causes of the L.A. riots was a Korean small-business owner [killing] 15-year-old Latasha Harlins, who had come in to buy orange juice. 1 killed in fiery crash on Baltimore Pike in Chester Co. OC Beach Patrol investigation prompts immediate actions, 10-year-old girl who testified in Chauvin trial reacts to guilty verdict, How to talk to kids about climate change: LIVE. Ale (@Ale37856588) reported 8 minutes ago @Xbox Xbox is in trouble. The Whiskey Rebellion (also known as the Whiskey Insurrection) was a tax protest in the United States beginning in 1791 and ending in 1794 during the presidency of George Washington, ultimately under the command of American Revolutionary war veteran Major James McFarlane. The original version of this story, which is an interview with an author who holds strong political views and ideas, did not provide readers enough context for them to fully assess some of the controversial opinions discussed. We have to be willing to do things that scare us and that we wouldn't do in normal, "peaceful" times, because we need to get free. All these tropes come down to claiming that the rioters and the looters don't know what they're doing. Mark Makela/Getty Images Graffiti on a boarded-up home under construction at 52nd and Delancey streets warn of unrest if the killer of George Floyd is not convicted, seen April 2, 2021. WoollyCashhhhhh☮️ (@prollychillin) reported 9 minutes ago You're mass shoplifting. But I disagree. There's actually a police tactic for this, called controlled management. There was fear that that kind of rioting would spread. But the food desert is already an incredibly unjust situation. So you've got a dozen heavily armed men standing here watching you march. It's actually a Republican myth that has, over the last 20 years, really crawled into even leftist discourse: that the small-business owner must be respected, that the small-business owner creates jobs and is part of the community. Activists themselves are doing no violence, but there is so much potential violence all around them. Dozens of demonstrators marched through the streets of Philadelphia in protest of the deadly police shooting of Daunte Wright in Minneapolis … But that actually turned into the first urban riot in the movement. But the history of the movement for liberation in America is full of looters and rioters. And that store just remained untouched through weeks of rioting. And I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about why making that distinction is important to you. That has to do with the history of protesters trying to appear respectable and politically legible as a movement, and not wanting to be too frightening or threatening. I spoke with Osterweil, and our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. I'm not defending any situation in which property is stolen by force. What are the reasons people deploy it as a strategy? Looting strikes at the heart of property, of whiteness and of the police. The so-called "whiskey tax" was the first tax imposed on a domestic product by the newly formed federal government. "Rioting" generally refers to any moment of mass unrest or upheaval. The popular understanding of the civil rights movement is that it was successful when it was nonviolent and less successful when it was focused on Black power. 12:43 a.m. A flag drapes across looted shelves in a hardware store in Philadelphia during unrest following the death of George Floyd in late May. The rioters who smash windows and take items from stores, she claims, are engaging in a powerful tactic that questions the justice of "law and order," and the distribution of property and wealth in an unequal society. I think people know. A flag drapes across looted shelves in a hardware store in Philadelphia during unrest following the death of George Floyd in late May. It gets people what they need for free immediately, which means that they are capable of living and reproducing their lives without having to rely on jobs or a wage — which, during COVID times, is widely unreliable or, particularly in these communities is often not available, or it comes at great risk. Community leaders and business owners in Philadelphia had a sense of relief Tuesday following the conviction of former Minneapolis Officer Derek Chauvin. The Los Angeles Police Department said the mostly-peaceful protest on May 30 in Beverly Hills devolved into multiple incidents of vandalism and looting of … But that is a part of the inequity of the society, that people live in places where there is only one place where they can get access to something [like food or medicine]. There's this real tendency to try and blame people for fighting back, for revealing the inequity of the injustice that's already been formed by the time that they're fighting. PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Philadelphia police are investigating a possible shooting in North Philadelphia after a 10-year-old boy suffered minor lacerations on Saturday night. Andrew Cuomo saying that stealing purses and sneakers from high-end stores in Manhattan was "inexcusable," or St. Paul, Minn., Mayor Melvin Carter saying looters were "destroy[ing] our community," police officers, government officials and pundits alike have denounced the property damage and demanded an end to the riots. hide caption. It's a convenient way of positioning yourself as though you are sympathetic. Live article view Replica view ... out on that question but others are working now to head off a potential repeat of last year’s civil unrest and looting. It attacks the idea of property, and it attacks the idea that in order for someone to have a roof over their head or have a meal ticket, they have to work for a boss, in order to buy things that people just like them somewhere else in the world had to make under the same conditions. I have heard a lot of talk about white anarchists who weren't part of the movement, but they just came in to smash windows and make a ruckus. This was also in the context of the Cold War and a mass anticolonial revolt going on all over Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America. When she finished it, back in April, she wrote that "a new energy of resistance is building across the country." That question assumes well, what if you're in a food desert? But it's an incredibly broad category. Nonviolence emerged in the '50s and '60s during the civil rights movement, [in part] as a way to appeal to Northern liberals. And her book arrives as the continued protests have emerged as a bitter dividing point in the presidential race. It's a myth that we get taught over and over again from the first moment we learn about the civil rights movement: that it was a nonviolent movement, and that that's what matters about it. ReliefWeb. Philadelphia Weather. It's about a certain kind of action that's taken during protests and riots. I'd say that rioting is a broader category in which looting appears as a tactic. PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- The City of Philadelphia is reacting to an all-guilty verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who pressed his knee into George Floyd's neck, killing him. People who made that argument for Minneapolis weren't suddenly celebrating the looters in Chicago, who drove down to the richest part of Chicago, the Magnificent Mile, and attacked places like Tesla and Gucci — because it's not really about that. When it comes to small business, family-owned business or locally owned business, they are no more likely to provide worker protections. And it's just not true. What would you say to people who are concerned about essential places like grocery stores or pharmacies being attacked in those communities? We remember the Birmingham struggle of '63, with the famous photos of Bull Connor releasing the police dogs and fire hoses on teenagers, as nonviolent. RW COVID-19 page: Find latest updates on global humanitarian responses Global Menu. So you get to the heart of that property relation, and demonstrate that without police and without state oppression, we can have things for free. There's a reason that Trump has embraced the "white anarchist" line so intensely. When I use the word looting, I mean the mass expropriation of property, mass shoplifting during a moment of upheaval or riot. The community in West Philadelphia is reacting to the guilty verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial. Writer Vicky Osterweil's book, In Defense of Looting, came out on Tuesday. ABC News Special Report: Derek Chauvin found guilty on all charges in the death of George Floyd. The George Floyd protests are an ongoing series of protests against police brutality and racism that began in Minneapolis in the United States on May 26, 2020. This one goes back to slavery, when plantation owners would claim that it was Freedmen and Yankees coming South and giving the enslaved these crazy ideas — that they were real human beings — and that's why they revolted. Why is this common? It tends to be an attack on a business, a commercial space, maybe a government building — taking those things that would otherwise be commodified and controlled and sharing them for free. It's not actually hurting any people. A business being attacked in the community is ultimately about attacking like modes of oppression that exist in the community. And I think that's a part of it that doesn't really get talked about — that riots and looting are experienced as sort of joyous and liberatory. The word that can mean both those things cannot be guiding me morally. In the past months of demonstrations for Black lives, there has been a lot of condemnation of looting. During the uprisings of this past summer, rioting and looting have often gone hand in hand. You make the distinction between violence against property, like smashing a window or stealing something, versus violence against a human body. Osterweil is a self-described writer, editor and agitator who has been writing about and participating in protests for years. The very basis of property in the U.S. is derived through whiteness and through Black oppression, through the history of slavery and settler domination of the country. They might have worked in those shops. Riots are a space in which a mass of people has produced a situation in which the general laws that govern society no longer function, and people can act in different ways in the street and in public. That's a police strategy to divide the movement. They've always been a part of our movement. Kids got up, threw rocks and smashed police cars and storefront windows in that combat. Can you talk about rioting as a tactic? PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- While Minneapolis is more than 1,100 miles away, the City of Philadelphia is preparing for what will happen in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the … ET, June 3, 2020 Thousands around the world protest George Floyd's death in global display of solidarity. As you pointed out, it can mean both breaking a window, lighting a dumpster on fire, or it can mean the police murdering Tamir Rice. Looting is a highly racialized word from its very inception in the English language. But that's actually a right-wing myth. But there's also another factor, which is anti-Blackness and contempt for poor people who want to live a better life, which looting immediately provides. Sharpton to deliver eulogy at service, A 'COVID miracle': Bucks County man heads home after 210-day battle with virus, FedEx truck involved in crash on NJ Turnpike, Action News Mornings Awards & Action News Band performs, WATCH: Embiid nearly makes full-court shot in final seconds. They were looted last year during the riots and looting in Philadelphia after Floyd was killed. Weather. One thing that you're really careful about in your book is how you talk about violence at riots. Armed guards Ale37856588 ) reported 8 minutes ago @ Xbox Xbox is trouble. Product by the newly formed federal government a part of our movement that kind of action private homes attacks! Looted shelves in a disorganized way, maybe an `` animalistic ''.. A flag drapes across looted shelves in a disorganized way, maybe ``! 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