Back in 2020, amidst the George Floyd riots, Sally Kohn invited the Black Lives Matter protesters to vandalize and loot small businesses because "property is insured and can be replaced." So what if your small business was looted and burned to the ground by rioters … insurance will cover it, right? Why worry?
I remember reading a lot of comments about how insurance doesn't cover riots, and that not every small business is insured. Plus, Black Lives Matter protesters burning down black-owned businesses was perfectly ironic.
I've also heard thrown around a lot the Martin Luther King Jr. quote, "Riots are the language of the unheard." Actually, riots are the language of the inarticulate. Or are they? The Nation wonders if property destruction is "a reasonable and articulate expression."
What if property destruction is more than an understandable lapse of judgment and loss of control? What if it is not a frustrated, emotional reaction but a reasonable and articulate expression in itself?https://t.co/JSUKT8mPnW
— The Nation (@thenation) June 11, 2025
R.H. Lossin writes:
There are a number of reasons the destruction of property should be taken seriously rather than treated as an unfortunate externality or the expression of regrettably unchecked passions. To begin with, pathologizing the act is tantamount to pathologizing the actor: Given the racial dimension of these protests, even apparently sympathetic explanations of theft and destruction risk of implying that people of color are reacting from feelings rather than carrying out reasoned, calculated acts with their own perfectly legitimate political logics. Attacking police stations, for example, makes rational sense. It is not the sudden, spontaneous expression of a disordered and irrational mob but the clear enactment of a political position, the fulfillment in some small but concrete way of the central demand being made by protesters across the country: Police need to be defunded, and some police stations need to disappear.
So why did Losssin waste the time it took to write this piece and not vandalize a police station or burn down a liquor store?
Recommended
In case anybody wants to put whether the publishers of The Nation are interested in putting their money where their mouth is on this here’s the address of their headquarters pic.twitter.com/P4n5HeK3X2
— Enguerrand VII de Coucy (@ingelramdecoucy) June 11, 2025
Yes please run with this toxic bullshit
— ericontrarian (@eriContrarian) June 11, 2025
What if your head is shoved so far up your own asshole you can see the back of your teeth? This impossibly stupid article. This is what happens.
— Boo (@IzaBooboo) June 11, 2025
Oh no, imagine the risk of implying that people of color are reacting from feelings when they set a Waymo on fire and then dance on the roof of it waving a Mexican flag?
What if you stopped publishing
— M Hirschbrunnen 🍌 (@DearLeftyFriend) June 11, 2025
Where is your property located so I can “express” myself?
— The Old Knickerbocker (@Dexpectations12) June 11, 2025
Not only will liberals excuse murders, rapists, and fentanyl dealers if they're here illegally … they'll also excuse rioting and burning down city blocks. Amazing.
***
