NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK."
-
One Author's Argument 'In Defense Of Looting'
More at the link, but here's a sample.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
For people who haven't read your book, how do you define looting?
When I use the word looting, I mean the mass expropriation of property, mass shoplifting during a moment of upheaval or riot. That's the thing I'm defending. I'm not defending any situation in which property is stolen by force. It's not a home invasion, either. It's about a certain kind of action that's taken during protests and riots.
Looting is a highly racialized word from its very inception in the English language. 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.
During the uprisings of this past summer, rioting and looting have often gone hand in hand. Can you talk about the distinction you see between the two?
"Rioting" generally refers to any moment of mass unrest or upheaval.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. I'd say that rioting is a broader category, in which looting appears as a tactic.
Often, looting is more common among movements that are coming from below. 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.
Can you talk about rioting as a tactic? What are the reasons people deploy it as a strategy?
It does a number of important things. 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. That's looting's most basic tactical power as a political mode of action.
It also attacks the very way in which food and things are distributed. 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. It points to the way in which that's unjust. 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. 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.
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. 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. Looting strikes at the heart of property, of whiteness and of the police. It gets to the very root of the way those three things are interconnected. And also it provides people with an imaginative sense of freedom and pleasure and helps them imagine a world that could be. 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.000000
What are some of the most common myths and tropes that you hear about looting?
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. This is a classic. 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.
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. 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.
Another one is that looters are just acting as consumers: Why are they taking flat screen TVs instead of rice and beans? Like, if they were just surviving, it'd be one thing, but they're taking liquor. All these tropes come down to claiming that the rioters and the looters don't know what they're doing. They're acting, you know, in a disorganized way, maybe an "animalistic" way. But the history of the movement for liberation in America is full of looters and rioters. They've always been a part of our movement.
-
Looting should obviously not be part of a protest. Murder should obviously not be part of an arrest. Choose your outrage I guess.
-
Looting should obviously not be part of a protest. Murder should obviously not be part of an arrest. Choose your outrage I guess.
@Aqua-Letifer said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
Looting should obviously not be part of a protest. Murder should obviously not be part of an arrest. Choose your outrage I guess.
The aggregate cultural response is that white cops shooting black guys is a symptom of the worst institutionalized evil of our society, while the looting is a regrettable side effect of an otherwise justified response to the evil.
-
@Aqua-Letifer said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
Looting should obviously not be part of a protest. Murder should obviously not be part of an arrest. Choose your outrage I guess.
The aggregate cultural response is that white cops shooting black guys is a symptom of the worst institutionalized evil of our society, while the looting is a regrettable side effect of an otherwise justified response to the evil.
@Horace said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
@Aqua-Letifer said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
Looting should obviously not be part of a protest. Murder should obviously not be part of an arrest. Choose your outrage I guess.
The aggregate cultural response is that white cops shooting black guys is a symptom of the worst institutionalized evil of our society, while the looting is a regrettable side effect of an otherwise justified response to the evil.
Righty response is that looters are a symptom of the worst institutionalized evil of our society, while police brutality is a regrettable side effect of an otherwise justified response to the evil.
Both are pretty ridiculous but as I said, it's based on which mental model (protesters or cops) you feel more comfortable with.
-
Any appeal to what I personally think is unintentional. I am trying to say what I believe our aggregate cultural response is.
There is no power in claiming both sides are equal, and no particular brilliance in it. Much to the chagrin of everybody who realizes their favorite side is probably more at fault than the other side is.
-
@Aqua: Bullshit. Neither are OK. But declaring one a racist evil when facts say otherwise, which is often the case with police violence, does not make it so. There is no similar defense for looting.
-
@Aqua: Bullshit. Neither are OK. But declaring one a racist evil when facts say otherwise, which is often the case with police violence, does not make it so. There is no similar defense for looting.
@Mik said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
@Aqua: Bullshit. Neither are OK. But declaring one a racist evil when facts say otherwise, which is often the case with police violence, does not make it so. There is no similar defense for looting.
It's not a perfect equality thing like Horace mentioned, but I'm saying that where your outrage lies says a lot about you as a person. The "looting is okay" crap is really troubling. But I find "well, the people who died from police—quick let's find out if they were on drugs or have a record so I don't have to care about their deaths and take a look at that LOOTING" interesting and weird.
Please love yourself.
-
I agree that litigating these incidents is more trouble than it's worth. You don't want your position to hinge on the cops not being racist murderers. Maybe they were. Or, more realistically, maybe they can be framed that way sufficiently that questioning out loud whether they were, would be social suicide.
-
@Horace said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
@Aqua-Letifer said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
Looting should obviously not be part of a protest. Murder should obviously not be part of an arrest. Choose your outrage I guess.
The aggregate cultural response is that white cops shooting black guys is a symptom of the worst institutionalized evil of our society, while the looting is a regrettable side effect of an otherwise justified response to the evil.
Righty response is that looters are a symptom of the worst institutionalized evil of our society, while police brutality is a regrettable side effect of an otherwise justified response to the evil.
Both are pretty ridiculous but as I said, it's based on which mental model (protesters or cops) you feel more comfortable with.
@Aqua-Letifer said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
@Horace said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
@Aqua-Letifer said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
Looting should obviously not be part of a protest. Murder should obviously not be part of an arrest. Choose your outrage I guess.
The aggregate cultural response is that white cops shooting black guys is a symptom of the worst institutionalized evil of our society, while the looting is a regrettable side effect of an otherwise justified response to the evil.
Righty response is that looters are a symptom of the worst institutionalized evil of our society, while police brutality is a regrettable side effect of an otherwise justified response to the evil.
Both are pretty ridiculous but as I said, it's based on which mental model (protesters or cops) you feel more comfortable with.
Both are awful. No one tries to sell police brutality quite like looting is okay though.
NPR listeners are struggling today if they had it all wrong and looting is good. Hahahaha.
-
@Mik said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
@Aqua: Bullshit. Neither are OK. But declaring one a racist evil when facts say otherwise, which is often the case with police violence, does not make it so. There is no similar defense for looting.
It's not a perfect equality thing like Horace mentioned, but I'm saying that where your outrage lies says a lot about you as a person. The "looting is okay" crap is really troubling. But I find "well, the people who died from police—quick let's find out if they were on drugs or have a record so I don't have to care about their deaths and take a look at that LOOTING" interesting and weird.
@Aqua-Letifer said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
@Mik said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
@Aqua: Bullshit. Neither are OK. But declaring one a racist evil when facts say otherwise, which is often the case with police violence, does not make it so. There is no similar defense for looting.
It's not a perfect equality thing like Horace mentioned, but I'm saying that where your outrage lies says a lot about you as a person. The "looting is okay" crap is really troubling. But I find "well, the people who died from police—quick let's find out if they were on drugs or have a record so I don't have to care about their deaths and take a look at that LOOTING" interesting and weird.
No one is saying that. What is being done is looking at the entire picture, not through the lens of desired outrage situation. The recent incidents can in no coherent way be connected to racism other than it was a black person who died. The racism part is simply assumed.
I'm not comfortable with any of it. What I am interested in is seeing if there are ways to reduce these events. The problem with that approach is you have to hold both parties accountable for their actions and that is not being done in any meaningful way.
-
@Aqua-Letifer said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
@Mik said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
@Aqua: Bullshit. Neither are OK. But declaring one a racist evil when facts say otherwise, which is often the case with police violence, does not make it so. There is no similar defense for looting.
It's not a perfect equality thing like Horace mentioned, but I'm saying that where your outrage lies says a lot about you as a person. The "looting is okay" crap is really troubling. But I find "well, the people who died from police—quick let's find out if they were on drugs or have a record so I don't have to care about their deaths and take a look at that LOOTING" interesting and weird.
No one is saying that. What is being done is looking at the entire picture, not through the lens of desired outrage situation. The recent incidents can in no coherent way be connected to racism other than it was a black person who died. The racism part is simply assumed.
I'm not comfortable with any of it. What I am interested in is seeing if there are ways to reduce these events. The problem with that approach is you have to hold both parties accountable for their actions and that is not being done in any meaningful way.
@Mik said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
What is being done is looking at the entire picture, not through the lens of desired outrage situation. The recent incidents can in no coherent way be connected to racism other than it was a black person who died. The racism part is simply assumed.
Oh yeah well I'm not talking about that. I think everyone on this board is smart enough to know "the police" don't hate black people. (Heck I think we all know better than to believe in a concept of "the police" anyway.) It's a stupid narrative.
-
Then how is the conversation not centered around ways to defeat that narrative? That narrative is the fuel of the fire, is it not?
@Horace said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
Then how is the conversation not centered around ways to defeat that narrative? That narrative is the fuel of the fire, is it not?
I think it beats out Trump's possible contest of the election results as the biggest threat to stability we face today. But there's no beating it, I don't think. There aren't enough people out there trying to figure out where the truth is. You have lefties ginning up incidents that could get violent, experimenting with anarchy, and you have Trump's side doing whatever you might call it, and a whole bunch of people in the middle paying attention to how the tide's moving. But I don't think enough people are seeking facts, I think that's done.
You got any ideas? All I have is trying to call bullshit where one sees it, and as a fallback plan buying ammo and making sure your passport's still valid.
-
Well no I think the racism narrative has been carefully cultivated as the most powerful cultural cudgel. You won't get people who see it as their path to power, not to use it. They spent their lives forging that weapon, they're not just going to hang it over the hearth and enjoy a nice quiet peaceful life. I don't see any way that it won't remain the most important cultural idea in America for the rest of our lives. But like you, we can all call BS when we see it. I mean, to the extent that we can do so without sacrificing our economic lives.
-
@Mik said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
@Aqua: Bullshit. Neither are OK. But declaring one a racist evil when facts say otherwise, which is often the case with police violence, does not make it so. There is no similar defense for looting.
It's not a perfect equality thing like Horace mentioned, but I'm saying that where your outrage lies says a lot about you as a person. The "looting is okay" crap is really troubling. But I find "well, the people who died from police—quick let's find out if they were on drugs or have a record so I don't have to care about their deaths and take a look at that LOOTING" interesting and weird.
@Aqua-Letifer said in NPR interviews author of book who says "Looting is OK.":
"well, the people who died from police—quick let's find out if they were on drugs or have a record so I don't have to care about their deaths and take a look at that LOOTING" interesting and weird.
No need to be quick, as long as justice is served in the end.
Have we found a guy yet who was shot and was clean?
No need to look that up, I still wouldn't care all that much. I'm really more interested in finding the police department that has a policy that says it is OK to shoot unarmed people. Without that we don't have much to be fixed.
