So, You Want to Talk About Riots and Looting? Let's. (For the Last Time.)
This post is written by a middle-class White male and the intended audience is White people; the people who make up my close-friend group, my acquaintances and theirs, my family and extended family, those separated by varying degrees in my social network.
Apologies for any odd font or formatting issues. I tried to figure out how to fix them, but the juice ain't worth the squeeze.
Prelude
Before I even begin, let me introduce you to a pair of articles written by a colleague of mine. These two articles were among the first words I read in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and they served not only as important thought-pieces, but also played a big part in inspiring me to do some of my own writing on this subject. I highly recommend reading both in their entirety. The quotes are meant to hook you into reading more, not to serve as a quick and dirty summary.
For Liberals Concerned With Rioting and Looting
“Credibility” and why George Floyd’s death was different
Speak Up For Justice, Not Down to the Oppressed
You Know What, I’m Willing to Take This Thing Further
A beautifully concise quote I encountered this week: “Do not tell me how to battle oppression from the comfort of your own privilege.”(1)
The “comfort of our privilege”—this is a thing worth acknowledging and thinking about. If we wish to see change happen, we cannot expect it to come without some expense to our comfort (“our” = privileged White people) because the very system we seek to change is the system which paid for and ensured (2) our comfort. It is time to humble ourselves in support of something much more significant than comfort: Justice. Equality. Dignity.
It is the comfort of our privilege that sees rioting and looting as the indefensible and politically worthless acts of the “worst among us,” rather than the natural and often effective response to a centuries-long history of maltreatment. In the first of Ms. Pott’s articles above, she references the next two articles below, both of which I also found extremely illuminating. It is time we turned a critical eye toward these specific acts of protest, rather than just regurgitating the same tired sentiments about them to maintain some moralistic high ground.
_________________________________________________________________________________
(4) Yes enemy, for that is how we conceive of those on opposite sides of the aisle...formerly “opponent,” still further back “interlocutor.”
(5) Truth be told, purposefully so. I had to bury the lead a bit for dramatic effect, forgive me.
Apologies for any odd font or formatting issues. I tried to figure out how to fix them, but the juice ain't worth the squeeze.
Prelude
Before I even begin, let me introduce you to a pair of articles written by a colleague of mine. These two articles were among the first words I read in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and they served not only as important thought-pieces, but also played a big part in inspiring me to do some of my own writing on this subject. I highly recommend reading both in their entirety. The quotes are meant to hook you into reading more, not to serve as a quick and dirty summary.
For Liberals Concerned With Rioting and Looting
“If you’re concerned that the power of the movement is being lost, take action instead of lamenting aloud. If you are sincerely worried that rioting and looting are distracting from and damaging a worthwhile cause, do not introduce conversations and drive increased attention to rioting and looting. Refocus on the cause. Refocus yourself, and then others.”
“Credibility” and why George Floyd’s death was different
“A claim against power must be inhumanly perfect to register as credible...Those in power have no desire to give any of it up, so they’ll look for any reason to discredit those seeking change.”
“Conversely, violence in any form from the oppressed poses an existential threat to progress. In the United States, we’ve been raised through education systems and media that, after the Civil Rights Movement, co-opted and glorified non-violence, as a concept, and taught us that is the only acceptable, productive, and sustainable path to change, and erased all other forms of revolution within the movement. The systems that turned Malcolm X into an MLK foil and refused to teach about the Panthers, and told us that the problem ended in 1965. This is all a revisionist, biased history that maintains current power structures. There is a far higher expectation on those rising up. To surmount centuries of injustice requires perfection: the claim must be inarguable, the people have to be twice as good.”
Speak Up For Justice, Not Down to the Oppressed
(or: Yes, I see the paradox in writing a long winded argument about something I think we should spend less time discussing)
I have, like much of America, been thinking a lot about race recently.
I have, like much of America, been thinking a lot about race recently.
I have, like many white people, been confronted by the uncomfortable reality that - even though I have internalized ideas about race and social justice - I am not good at talking about race, that I don’t really know where to begin externalizing these thoughts into a constructive dialogue, with either black or white folks.
I have, as I hope others have, been working to open my ears and my eyes to better equip myself to have these discussions—like learning that the concluding phrase of the previous paragraph should probably be revised to read “with either Black or White folx” (Why? Link here.)
In thinking about how to best stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter Movement, and how to be an effective ally to marginalized people in general, I realized I must both amplify the voices of those speaking out against the injustice they experience and also find my own voice to speak up for what is right.
Admittedly, finding an appropriate way to do both of these things - especially the latter - has been a struggle for me, but this post is my first attempt and best effort to do so.
In the days that have followed since George Floyd’s murder, there seems to me to be an ever-growing consensus that systemic racism is real and that reform of policing is necessary. For those who have doubts about either, let me echo the words of 49ers coach (love you, Kyle!) Kyle Shanahan, “That's a fact [...] That's the starting point, because it's happened too long and it's very clear. I don't want to debate it anymore. No one does. Open your eyes."
However, I have noticed a disheartening undercurrent in the discussion about the protests, even from those who support the Movement, which is the quick disavowal of any form of protest that is not peaceful and falls outside of the bounds of the comfort of our collective idea of normality—a normality that is decidedly White.
As quickly as videos of smashed windows and stolen Nikes can be uploaded to social media a sentiment emerges, among White people especially, that can sometimes dominate more important conversations about systemic oppression and racial injustice : “Looting and rioting are bad and I think those forms of protest are disgusting.”
My attention-grabbing assertion in this piece: If you want to see Black Lives Matter succeed and intend to be part of the change that dismantles systemic oppression, you need to stop talking and posting about rioting and looting.
Assuming you do believe Black lives matter, and assuming you think police brutality against Black people is an atrocity, it occurs to me that there are still several reasons to center discussions about protests around rioting and looting, and truth be told, none of those reasons do any good for the various movements striving to affect positive change, including what I am going to call the capital-M “Movement,” which is comprised of the more widely accepted “Movement” organized and legitimized peaceful protests taking place in our country. The usage of the capital-M Movement is my clunky attempt at differentiating these accepted forms of protest from a wider lower-case “movement” that includes all practices of protest, rioting and looting included.
Like Ms. Potts writes in the first article linked above, one of the primary reasons to talk about rioting and looting is because you are concerned the attention drawn by those acts will detract from the Movement. If this is the case I suggest you read her article and take her advice to just stop talking about them, drawing further attention away from more worthwhile conversations.
A second reason to bring up rioting and looting is because you want it to be known you are not a racist, but also that you have strong American values and morals (American in this sentence = White). You want equality, but there’s a “right way to go about these things and a wrong way” and it’s important to you that everyone knows you don’t support the “wrong way” because you’re a stand up individual. This reason is, frankly, a bad reason. This is not news, it is self-centered attention seeking. If you can’t tell, I have zero patience for this, it is extremely unhelpful, and worse yet, potentially damaging to affecting real change.
Yet a third reason to center your focus on, and draw the attention of others to, rioting and looting is because you fear rioting and looting. You don’t understand it, it scares you, and when you are confused and frightened by something you seek comfort in a community of fellow citizens who are likewise outraged and disturbed by the actions of these “so-called protesters.” When we are confused and scared, we seek validation from others, like a public form of group therapy. This, I do think, is understandable. That said, if you want to be part of the solution and not part of the problem my advice to you is this: Get over it. Change is going to require discomfort. YOUR discomfort, MY discomfort.
You Know What, I’m Willing to Take This Thing Further
A beautifully concise quote I encountered this week: “Do not tell me how to battle oppression from the comfort of your own privilege.”(1)
The “comfort of our privilege”—this is a thing worth acknowledging and thinking about. If we wish to see change happen, we cannot expect it to come without some expense to our comfort (“our” = privileged White people) because the very system we seek to change is the system which paid for and ensured (2) our comfort. It is time to humble ourselves in support of something much more significant than comfort: Justice. Equality. Dignity.
It is the comfort of our privilege that sees rioting and looting as the indefensible and politically worthless acts of the “worst among us,” rather than the natural and often effective response to a centuries-long history of maltreatment. In the first of Ms. Pott’s articles above, she references the next two articles below, both of which I also found extremely illuminating. It is time we turned a critical eye toward these specific acts of protest, rather than just regurgitating the same tired sentiments about them to maintain some moralistic high ground.
_____________________________________________________________________________
(1) I am writing this not verbatim, but from memory, because I unfortunately don’t remember where I read this and forgot to save the link for it, so for now it will go sadly unattributed.
(2)Insured too! Haha! Words ❤
(2)Insured too! Haha! Words ❤
“I would put forth that peaceful protesting is a luxury of those already in mainstream culture, those who can be assured their voices will be heard without violence, those who can afford to wait for the change they want.”
“Indeed, although you might hang out in it, how can a chain convenience store or corporate restaurant earnestly be part of anyone’s neighborhood? The same white liberals who inveigh against corporations for destroying local communities are aghast when rioters take their critique to its actual material conclusion.The mystifying ideological claim that looting is violent and non-political is one that has been carefully produced by the ruling class because it is precisely the violent maintenance of property which is both the basis and end of their power. Looting is extremely dangerous to the rich (and most white people) because it reveals, with an immediacy that has to be moralized away, that the idea of private property is just that: an idea, a tenuous and contingent structure of consent, backed up by the lethal force of the state. When rioters take territory and loot, they are revealing precisely how, in a space without cops, property relations can be destroyed and things can be had for free.”
One important thing that came out of these readings for me is that rioting and looting are often used as a dividing point by those who would seek to fracture the people who are fighting against their oppressors, which brings up the timeless imperial strategy of divide and conquer. To boil down one analysis I took from Ms.Osterweil’s article, it seems that the urge to classify protestors as “good” and “bad” is simply another way of causing division where there could be unity, and to again justify police violence to be committed against the oppressed (in this case, People of Color) who resort to forms of protest we label “bad” from the comfort of our privilege.
I am not too proud to admit the provenance of this next quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to me from a Pitchfork review I just read of Run the Jewels most recent album release, RTJ4. In the review, Dr. King is quoted as saying “A riot is the language of the unheard” and, more importantly in my opinion, “large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.” (Emphasis mine.)
Of course there are protests that turn away from our much-preferred peaceful ones. Frederick Douglass said it in 1886 and it remains unerringly true, “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
We must make space for rioting and looting in our collective conception of protest. Let me be clear, I am not advocating for, or encouraging violence or theft. I am personally a nonviolent person. I prefer peaceful action, and I believe that peaceful action is a highly effective and righteous way to achieve impact and change. But I do not think it is the only way. We must not be so quick to condemn actions, even those which we may have distaste for, which seek to do damage to systems that need to be dismantled.
If these non-peaceful forms of protest detract from your sense of safety and make you feel anxious, take a moment to reflect on the fact that our social institutions, the very police forces we have entered into a social contract with to protect and to serve, have long detracted from Black people’s sense of safety. Imagine that feeling for a lifetime, ignored and often belittled by those in power and those who benefit from the structures enforced by those in power.(3)
And so I challenge you to make room to tolerate riots and looting. I do not ask you to take part or to celebrate them, but to see them for what they are: a sign that urgent help is needed, not derision and dismisiveness.
Let us choose justice and humanity over tranquility.
_____________________________________________________________________________
(3) If it is not clear by now “those who benefit from structures enforced by those in power” are you and me, middle class White Americans.
CODA
I have often been accused of wordiness stemming from my predilection for providing full context for my opinions and arguments, and despite those numerous objections from friends and family to “just get to the damn point,” I simply can’t leave unwritten a (relatively) short background to my own personal experience with the events surrounding George Floyd’s murder and ultimately the decision to share my thoughts in writing outside my inner circle, despite feeling not a small bit of discomfort and hesitation to do so.
I have long attempted to abstain from entering such politically-juiced conversation, especially publicly. Finding my own form of spirituality throughout my adult years, largely patterned after the Taoist concept of wu wei (loosely: non-doing, inaction), it has seemed both righteous and expedient to me to largely detach from the political arena, which, in my interpretation of the last decade of American politics (especially nationally), was a quagmire of negativity reverberating and amplifying in an echo chamber - liberals facing one wall, conservatives the other, both yelling their own well-loved facts and opinions, smiling smugly at hearing their own bounced back to them and laughing mirthlessly when catching wind of the words of their enemy.(4)
But though the definitions given above for wu wei are non-doing and inaction, those are somewhat misleading(5), because the concept, as I understand it, is more about not-planning, contriving and/or manipulating. It is, in my interpretation, about being patient with the universe and acting with purpose when action is called for, when action is in accordance with the natural way of things, when conviction is as much (or more) abstract intuition as logical deduction.
Well, if my action is not now called for, then when will it ever be? It is time, past time, that I added my voice (and loudly) to aid and support those who are oppressed. Oppression of fellow humans is not in accordance with the natural way of things, it is the most ultimate and abhorrent version of manipulation.
I am not too proud to admit the provenance of this next quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to me from a Pitchfork review I just read of Run the Jewels most recent album release, RTJ4. In the review, Dr. King is quoted as saying “A riot is the language of the unheard” and, more importantly in my opinion, “large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.” (Emphasis mine.)
Of course there are protests that turn away from our much-preferred peaceful ones. Frederick Douglass said it in 1886 and it remains unerringly true, “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
We must make space for rioting and looting in our collective conception of protest. Let me be clear, I am not advocating for, or encouraging violence or theft. I am personally a nonviolent person. I prefer peaceful action, and I believe that peaceful action is a highly effective and righteous way to achieve impact and change. But I do not think it is the only way. We must not be so quick to condemn actions, even those which we may have distaste for, which seek to do damage to systems that need to be dismantled.
If these non-peaceful forms of protest detract from your sense of safety and make you feel anxious, take a moment to reflect on the fact that our social institutions, the very police forces we have entered into a social contract with to protect and to serve, have long detracted from Black people’s sense of safety. Imagine that feeling for a lifetime, ignored and often belittled by those in power and those who benefit from the structures enforced by those in power.(3)
And so I challenge you to make room to tolerate riots and looting. I do not ask you to take part or to celebrate them, but to see them for what they are: a sign that urgent help is needed, not derision and dismisiveness.
Let us choose justice and humanity over tranquility.
_____________________________________________________________________________
(3) If it is not clear by now “those who benefit from structures enforced by those in power” are you and me, middle class White Americans.
CODA
I have often been accused of wordiness stemming from my predilection for providing full context for my opinions and arguments, and despite those numerous objections from friends and family to “just get to the damn point,” I simply can’t leave unwritten a (relatively) short background to my own personal experience with the events surrounding George Floyd’s murder and ultimately the decision to share my thoughts in writing outside my inner circle, despite feeling not a small bit of discomfort and hesitation to do so.
I have long attempted to abstain from entering such politically-juiced conversation, especially publicly. Finding my own form of spirituality throughout my adult years, largely patterned after the Taoist concept of wu wei (loosely: non-doing, inaction), it has seemed both righteous and expedient to me to largely detach from the political arena, which, in my interpretation of the last decade of American politics (especially nationally), was a quagmire of negativity reverberating and amplifying in an echo chamber - liberals facing one wall, conservatives the other, both yelling their own well-loved facts and opinions, smiling smugly at hearing their own bounced back to them and laughing mirthlessly when catching wind of the words of their enemy.(4)
But though the definitions given above for wu wei are non-doing and inaction, those are somewhat misleading(5), because the concept, as I understand it, is more about not-planning, contriving and/or manipulating. It is, in my interpretation, about being patient with the universe and acting with purpose when action is called for, when action is in accordance with the natural way of things, when conviction is as much (or more) abstract intuition as logical deduction.
Well, if my action is not now called for, then when will it ever be? It is time, past time, that I added my voice (and loudly) to aid and support those who are oppressed. Oppression of fellow humans is not in accordance with the natural way of things, it is the most ultimate and abhorrent version of manipulation.
_________________________________________________________________________________
(4) Yes enemy, for that is how we conceive of those on opposite sides of the aisle...formerly “opponent,” still further back “interlocutor.”
(5) Truth be told, purposefully so. I had to bury the lead a bit for dramatic effect, forgive me.
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