Ongoing U.S Police Brutality and Corruption Discussion Thread

"If sweeping up some glass and replacing a couple windows is a piece of everybody realizing the costs of racism-fueled police violence towards minorities is no longer affordable, then so be it," Bill Penzey wrote in an email to customers at the end of May, after the Minneapolis store suffered property damage and looting in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing.

https://www.upworthy.com/penzeys-spices-looting-its-own-store-for-racial-justice

kinda wanna disagree on principle with anything posted on upworthy.com ...

honestly though, esp. after reading comments and opinions from people where I live -- white, black, Latino, etc. -- it's not just "sweeping up some glass and replacing a couple windows." ... And not all property damage and looting have the same economic effects on workers, owners, communities. I appreciated that a few months back, there was an effort to avoid damaging black-owned businesses during BLM-affiliated protests. And considering a significant number of protesters were/are white ... to some people, it feels like super disrespectful and alienating to have white activists damage black businesses, and even just corporate-owned chains in black neighborhoods, for the sake of fighting racism? There's a colonialist aspect to it. Then you couple that with history of redlining and disinvestment in poor urban neighborhoods and the gross disparity of maintenance you see in largely affluent white areas vs. poorer black areas ... and smashing up a walgreen's has different undertones.

As gratifying as it can be to say "fuck capitalism, black lives matter more" ... the products and experience of capitalism often do provide comfort and positive benefits to people's lives, as they live them, as they feel them. ... It goes back to the "false consciousness" theoretical arguments from like the 50s and 60s that tend to come across as condescending as well as hand-wavey about how people experience happiness and fulfillment.

NO ONE GETS A SLURPEE UNTIL WE DEFUND THE MOTHERFUCKING POLICE!!!

I feel horrible for those mom and pop places that were hit and hope their insurance and gov't aid cover all of their losses. And for all of the people in those neighborhoods that depended on the services/goods/employment of places that were hit. That said, it feels like the reporters should've been more specific/selective when mapping building and property damage. Barnes and Noble getting tagged up shouldn't really be in the same conversation.

― Fetchboy, Thursday, August 27, 2020 9:55 AM (yesterday)

basically this -- Fetchers OTM!

I realise this doesn't really need to be said but: watching professional athletes throw their contracts and their unions' collectively bargained obligations to the wind because they've simply had enough has ben extraordinary.

we've never seen anything like this, ever, as far as I'm aware. not over police brutality, not over nazism - not on a scale like this. Even at the University of Tenne-fuckin-ssee the UT athletes - led by the football team - are having a campus-wide march on Saturday and calling on all the SEC athletes to do the same! I mean!!!!!??!

and it's pretty bracing to see such a vivid demonstration of the power of workers to make a difference. they're pretty much all in their 20s, and the student athletes not even that. probably facing all kinds of familial blowback over their actions. basically - god bless them all.

yeah.

Tracer otm!

Tracer, do you have a link for that UT story?

it would be a thing of beauty for SEC athletes to really make themselves heard right now

Very much agreed, but I do want to note that if we're talking about the NCAA then referring to them as "workers" is inaccurate, which is another injustice overdue for a reckoning

https://www.wvlt.tv/2020/08/26/ut-athletes-organize-march-on-campus-to-call-attention-to-racism/

rob i know what you mean but of course they very much are workers on whose labour a whole interlocking network of industries depends - i know you know that but just because they're not allowed to get paid doesn't i think invalidate that term

That’s a good point: they do deserve to be recognized as workers. My worry is that calling them that, or including them in the same broad category as unionized professional athletes, obscures the fact that to the ncaa they’re human capital. But I don’t think we actually disagree here!

🤝

in both cases - pro and amateur - it feels like athletes have really woken up to how much leverage they actually have. more than in a lot of other industries! it’s like, go ahead - try “replacement players” - see how that goes for you

The NBA and its players’ union announced a plan to use arenas as election polling places as part of a deal to resume the playoffs on Saturday. https://t.co/AgLydVP9ZI

— The New York Times (@nytimes) August 28, 2020

Imagine the lines if NBA players were *working* at the polling stations.

Sarahell, to categorize the protestors as white, even in a significant way, seems to be playing into an outside agitators narrative that has been proven false again and again and again.

There are also plenty of Black folks who'd say burn down the fucking 7/11. Hell, one of them was featured on the John Oliver show whose name I can never get right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llci8MVh8J4

i know it's 1 cent but i really don't agree with sarahell's pov. i sort of feel like that argument comes from a place that doesn't understand the depth of the wound. like the buildings or businesses are a pebbles compared to the weight of a mountain.

To be honest, everyone on ILX should watch that ^^^

Obviously, Black people are not a monolith, which Ms. Jones acknowledges.

But I'm tired of people, even well-meaning people whom I know and respect like you, Sarahell, talking about how 7-11s and QDobas shouldn't be destroyed during protests.

I agree with Ms. Jones. Let it burn.

boy, is that itself stupid and short-sighted and privileged.

You going to back any of those needless insults up, or are you just going to leave them there?

if a neighborhood loses the only place to get anything close to fresh food, who in the world does that benefit? if a neighborhood loses one of the few places for employment in a depressed neighborhood, who does that benefit? It's terrible that there are few alternatives, but I'm not sure how burning everything down helps anyone.

your devotion to hypothetical situations is very convincing

I have no idea what that means. Last I saw somebody came out anti-burning down convenience stores, and someone came out pro. And I'm sorry, I'm not usually one to intentionally insult or even try to insult anyone on this board. It's just that I'm not a fan of burn everything down. if the entire west side of Chicago burst into flames right now that wouldn't directly affect me at all. but it would directly affect every single person who lives there. Thats my privilege.

And that's not a hypothetical situation. that is literally what I read in interviews after the first protests here in May. people who no longer had a place to shop, people who no longer had a place to work. people with names, ages, addresses.

The problem is that it isn't just merely "terrible," much of what you speak of is by design— even if they're franchises, huge corporations that exist in poorer Black neighborhoods are there to exploit their workers and exploit those who have few other options. They're not beneficent or beneficial except to a very very small number of their workers, and they create tons and tons of cash for their corporate coffers. Looting them and burning them down is an example of taking what should rightfully be free, anyway, and showing displeasure at the state of a world where such vampiric corporations are seen as net positives as they suck the life out of communities.

At least where I am, it's not like the local bodegas got hit in riots— it was the corporate pharmacies and grocery stores, along with shoe stores and similar. Do I give a fuck about a Foot Locker just because it pays some people in the community a sub-par wage? Not really.

just need to point out that you're generalizing from already general accounts from media that have a bias. i'd be curious to read follow-up pieces on how these people are getting by now after .. not having a place to shop. i mean presumably that didn't kill them, although one might think it had based on the note of hysteria in your tone. xp

FWIW, this is what my friend wrote back in May (the same friend who was just documenting that racist asshole murdering people in Kenosha):

I’m standing outside a Dollar Tree on Chicago’s West Side. Looters stripped it of its inventory all day. Then they torched it.

Unlike most late-night scenes like this I’ve covered this week as a journalist, this one lacks the frantic energy we’ve seen in pictures, and there’s no public chorus condemning the killing of George Floyd. Instead, people stand numbed. Their eyes follow firefighters coiling hoses back on the trucks and the police officers climbing into a city bus to move on to the next ruin.

Since last weekend, when looting spread from the downtown business district to pockets of Chicago, I’ve tracked reactions on social media, largely by white friends safely tucked at home, away from the consequences of destruction. To my surprise, many romanticized the looting, saying it’s just their black neighbors raging against society’s sins that go back centuries. Two nights earlier I had posted photos of a hair salon’s storefront, shattered by bricks during a riot in Uptown. One friend said she understood the distraught owner’s frustration, but hey, she has insurance, and she should really appreciate the larger struggle.

Then there was that meme circulating for days that suggests if you are outraged by looting, you couldn’t possibly be outraged by the death of George Floyd.

No. You can be outraged by both. Looting is a destroyer in these neighborhoods. I agree that Gucci can rebuild. And Gucci customers can move on. But you know who can’t? Jerry Winfrey, 54, the caretaker for his mother. The Dollar Tree looting and fire now means he has nowhere to buy groceries. He has no car. The nearest Jewel might as well be on Mars. “Can’t go to the grocery store no more,” he says. With Dollar Tree gone, “it’s gonna be rough.”

“It’s a tragedy. It’s horrible, destroying things we need,” he says.

You know who agrees? Tamara Collins, 34, who worked as the manager of the Dollar Tree for three years. Tonight she’s jobless. The store employed 15 people. “Now we can’t feed our kids,” she says.

Collins and some of her co-workers snap photos to take home memories. On the steps of nearby gray stones are neighbors. They stare too. The sadness on that block is so thick, it’s unbearable.

Winfrey’s right. This whole thing is a tragedy, has zero to do with Floyd’s tragic killing, and it’s aggravating to listen to armchair liberals reciting abstract social theories that conclude what’s good for the impoverished in our city. Real life is more complex than fits a meme. Or that think piece in Salon you’re sharing that got your echo chamber giving you mega “likes” on your social media page.

The next time you share that meme and bang out a post proclaiming how looting and destruction benefits society because — Who? Trump? The mayor? Santa Claus? — is going to learn a lesson about the suffering of people, why don’t you drive to Chicago and Homan avenues on the West Side and ask the people who are actually suffering? Guarantee they’ll give you a different story.

I'll hit him up and ask him about any follow up, because I am generally curious as well.

Rending your garments over Wendy's getting burned down and pointing to others 'privilege' is just magnificient.

In Philly, most of the places that got fucked up are open again, with notable exceptions— the Lowe's near us that got hit is still closed, from what I can tell, but that place got super fucked up.

well for one thing that's terrible writing cherry-picking quotes to back its obvious agenda. xxo

Exactly. Did your friend interview anyone who felt differently? That was a news article, or an opinion piece?

Sarahell, to categorize the protestors as white, even in a significant way, seems to be playing into an outside agitators narrative that has been proven false again and again and again.

regardless of what has been proven, and whether the narrative is false, there are people in the black community (and esp. the local Asian community) who believe that narrative. And, it's one thing for people who live in neighborhoods to autonomously burn it down, it's a bit different when white people do it. ... which I have seen. Do I think it's as atrocious as the right-wingers and centrists do? No. Is it worse than cops killing black people? No. But to deny that it doesn't happen is absurd. Like, yeah, that white bro walking up my street with a looted desk lamp from Target happened. The handful of white bros yelling to one another to grab a six-pack of Racer 5 from the 7-11 at the corner of my block, that happened. Like, way to go, white bro, presumably you are demonstrating your privilege that if the security cameras caught you, your life probably won't be as fucked as a black person doing the same thing.

would you characterize these white bros as hipsters though?

Not getting into this with you. Most of what I've seen and heard about re: looting has been pretty equal opportunity, and pinning it on privileged white people just doesn't match up with all that. Rarely has.

My friend's piece was in fact an OpEd, so yeah, opinion.

Per privilege, I was just responding in turn to one of you folks calling out sarahell (who doesn't need my help defending herself) for the same. If these neighborhoods and stores burn, my privilege is that I don't have to deal with the fallout. There have been a few community counter protests in recent weeks here sort of saying the same thing. (I think I've posted a few?) Namely, people come in, do their thing, then leave, and the people living there have to deal with whatever they've left behind. Because yeah, there is no protester monolith. Different people are there for different reasons, with different aims and levels of commitment. But the majority of people of every stripe are just citizens on the sidelines.

I dunno, I just think "let it burn" is nihilistic. Whether it's ultimately productive is not for me to say, and I can't claim to have any solution to the systemic racism that has left entire neighborhoods in tatters.

Honestly, to me, the property damage is just a facet of letting off steam/anger and the excitement of being part of a movement, and also the anonymity that comes with that. It's human nature, and it tends to coincide with masculinity. ... It is similar to the shit people do when their team wins/loses the big game. It does feel less pointless when done in the name of anti-racism than anti-whatever-the-team-the-Raiders-lost-to-that-year. Idk, I guess I'm also coming from the view that capitalism will just continue to do its thing. They will either re-open the Targets or they won't.

Yeah, I mean, a general strike or work stoppage would probably get more results than setting something on fire. But that takes organization and resources that don't really exist right now, afaict.

It just kinda seems like people having different priorities and/or mindsets about change and activism. Some people want to be more comfortable while doing it, and others are more willing to sacrifice the Wendy's for the greater good. I just get tired of purity competitions and shaming people (on both sides of the property damage issue) for "not doing activism right". It ends up being divisive and things don't get done.

i sort of feel like that argument comes from a place that doesn't understand the depth of the wound. like the buildings or businesses are a pebbles compared to the weight of a mountain.

maybe I've just been watching too many documentaries about Reconstruction up until the Civil Rights era, and in that history, the right to own property and to have autonomy over that property, to own a business (even if it's a corporate franchise) and to have access to the "nice things" that white people have (e.g. safe and sanitary housing, schools, etc.) is also part of that wound that is racism.

table -- did I or anyone else tell you the story about the Haram pig mural?

as in, the story of the Haram pig mural is classic capitalist recuperation ... enabled by the absurd disorganization and incompetence of Oakland bureaucracy

No, I don't know about the pig mural!

I think that in regards to burning and looting, yes it's nihilistic...but so are the often huge corporate chains that are being looted and burned.

Acts of rage committed against property are often attempts to dispossess and disenfranchise a social order that has dispossessed and disenfranchised people. That some of these people get hurt by the consequences of those acts of rage is unfortunate, but nowhere near as unfortunate as the initial dispossession and disenfranchisement. To treat them as the same is ludicrous, IMHO. (And here, I am talking mostly to Josh, not you, Sarahell)

I dunno, I just think "let it burn" is nihilistic. Whether it's ultimately productive is not for me to say, and I can't claim to have any solution to the systemic racism that has left entire neighborhoods in tatters.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, August 28, 2020 2:34 PM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Of course it's nihilistic! That's the whole point: what has society given them to believe in.

?

If all that is between you and the abyss is a Wendy's and a Dollar Store . . .

Man, this is the most mentions of Wendy's I have seen in years.

this just makes me think of all the sports idiots being like "ok you're upset, but WHAT'S THE NEXT STEP HUH? HUH?" All this fallacious bullshit re causation and intent... have you ever been so mad that you broke something valuable to you? what was the purpose of throwing my cell phone across the room after a bad argument 15+ years ago?