A Modest Proposal

Something very interesting has been happening lately.

In spite of hundreds of businesses, churches and other property being trashed and looted, some prominent voices are saying it's not that big a deal. The editor of the New Yorker, David Remnick, just quoted (approvingly, by the way) a co-founder of Black Lives Matter:

    "We don't have time to finger-wag at protesters about property. That can be rebuilt. Target will reopen."

What if it doesn't?

The poster girl of this approach has been Nikole Hannah-Jones. A Pulitzer-prizewinning reporter for the New York Times, Hannah-Jones said in a recent interview:

   "I think any reasonable person would say we shouldn't be destroying other people's property. But these are not reasonable times... Violence is when an agent of the state kneels on a man's neck until all the life is leached out of his body. Destroying property, which can be replaced, is not violence. To use the same language to describe those two things is not moral."

Update:  She didn't say that, according to Hannah-Jones. She's being 'misrepresented.' Unfortunately, the above is a direct quote. See below.

 So a New York Times reporter says that destroying property "is not violence --" after all, that can be replaced. But taking a life is different. I understand the point she's trying to make. I do. What happened to George Floyd was wrong. What happened to Breonna Taylor (whose cause has NOT been protested as much) was wrong.

So you prove your commitment to nonviolence by... acting violently?

   Tell that to the California girl who guarded a jewelry store's front door for two hours from looters. (Gutsy, by the way.)

   Tell that to the business-owners who were already struggling to stay alive after the quarantine. They're exhausted. Some had been open only a few days, or were getting ready to reopen. Now their building is trashed and their merchandise gone. Bankruptcy and ruin doesn't care what color your skin is.

Not everyone has money to put up razor wire, rent floodlights and hire security with dogs, like Saks Fifth Avenue. 

I want to be openminded. I really do.

Therefore, I have a modest proposal, one that will point out the truth of "It's Just Stuff.". Let's get the home and office addresses of the people who aren't bothered by property damage,  then pass them on to various gangs and other organized looters who have been helping themselves. Not to mention all those enterprising opportunists out there. 

   Ms. Hannah-Jones, Black Lives Matter organizers and others advocating this reasoning shouldn't care if their personal possessions are stolen, lit on fire or just smashed out of spite. It can all be replaced -- everyone can afford insurance, right?  (And no deductibles either, apparently.)
         

Is this a rude response? Of course. Does it take these people at their word? You bet.

Attention, looters:  FREE STUFF TONIGHT!

Update: From Hannah-Jones' Twitter account:

"Despite numerous comments by people asking to post my address or burn or destroy my house, the Daily Caller is encouraging this by repeatedly reposting this story that falsely claims I am defending looting and actual violence. 
    This tactic is an attempt to silence black journalists and I will not cower."


Said another user: "I, too, hate when people quote exactly what I said." 


(And for you literary types -- as the Brick pointed out,
                        I Swiftly wrote this post. Think Irish babies.)


"All men are created equal -- but some are more equal than others."
               Animal Farm