Despite the president’s warning that the military would be deployed to deal with looting and property destruction in American cities, last night was business as usual in Seattle. Protesters set fire to police cars, broke windows in the city’s downtown area, and — of course — helped themselves to plenty of “free” stuff.
We also heard the same arguments we have been hearing over the last decade from leaders on the Left: that looting is a necessary — and even constructive — outlet on the part of an oppressed people.
In 2014, during the Ferguson riots, one schoolteacher defended looting in his blog, writing, “I think white privilege causes some to look at Ferguson as an excuse for criminal activity rather than a political protest. William Chamberlain tweeted a comment about the looting comparing it to the Boston Tea Party.” Ferguson protester DeRay McKesson was invited by Yale University to teach a one-credit course whose syllabus included a section titled “In Defense of Looting.” In the course description, McKesson argued:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
White people deploy the idea of looting in a way that implies people of color are greedy and lazy, but it is just the opposite: looting is a hard-won and dangerous act with potentially terrible consequences, and looters are only stealing from the rich owners’ profit margins.
Presumably McKesson didn’t consult with any of the black business owners in Ferguson who lost their livelihoods after rioters pillaged and set fire to their stores.
Despite what the Left would have us believe, not all looting occurs as a reaction to the “institutional racism that has always been in our country.” When the Philadelphia Eagles upset the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII in 2018, ecstatic fans celebrated with fires, shooting, and — you guessed it —looting. A local fast food restaurant franchisee whimsically tweeted:
We are excited to serve everyone biscuits tomorrow morning at our Philadelphia location but in order to do that it needs to be not burned down please
— Hardees (@Hardees) February 5, 2018
But when all is said and done, the Left will continue to crank out the same tired argument that looting is a “solution,” albeit to what they can’t say. Here’s Seattle city council member Tammy Morales on Monday:
…[W]hat I don’t want to hear is for our constituents to be told to be civil, not to be reactionary, that looting doesn’t solve anything. It does make me wonder and ask the question why looting bothers people so much more than knowing that across the country black men and women are dying every day and far too often at the hands of those who are sworn to protect and serve.
