I’m definitely in the camp of defending rioting & looting as a legitimate, politically-informed response to state violence. I’ve tweeted on this topic many times & I’m always willing to engage people in good faith discussion of why I hold that position.

I refuse any effort to deflect from the central issue of racism by pretending property damage warrants police firing teargas on communities that are justifiably outraged by how police keep murdering people.

Far from making the argument people think it does, the hand-wringing over property damage & looting in situations like this only highlights how this society treats Black people as less than human. I saw less concern when a white man blew up an entire block in downtown Nashville.

No one has difficulty understanding targeted property damage as a political act when it’s white ppl. Depicting Blk &/or poor ppl as mindlessly looting just to “take advantage” of social unrest [fostered by actions of the police] serves a racist fantasy of Black ppl being lawless.

The whole function of the focus on looting is to say, “look— this is why we need police even if they frequently murder people. Black ppl are just waiting for any opportunity to steal & the police are the only ones protecting the property”...

...They will never turn the camera to the Dollar Tree & then engage in an analysis of the economic relationship between the corporation & the community surrounding it & its connection to the daily experience of racist policing.

That offends many people’s sensibilities b/c people are so fully indoctrinated into white supremacy that they’ve never interrogated who is allowed to damage property & why. The police are simultaneously damaging property during a riot they incited but that is deemed acceptable.

Half of the political establishment continues to defend the actions of the 1/6 riot, arguing that the people who damaged property that day were justifiably outraged. The Boston Tea Party is also framed as a justified political act. It’s only Black ppl who must protest quietly.