Looting: Legitimate Political Protest? -#BlackLivesMatter "Professor" Deray Mckesson Maintains Looting Serves Social & Racial Justice

by Matthew Vadum

Looting is a great way to advance the increasingly violent, racist Black Lives Matter movement, an agitator is teaching students after being rewarded by the Left with a teaching gig at prestigious Yale University.

The words of Twitter star Deray Mckesson expose for the umpteenth time the lie that Black Lives Matter, whose members idolize unrepentant cop killers Mumia abu Jamal and Assata Shakur, is a law-abiding, peaceful movement and that those who loot and riot in its name are a fringe or unrelated element. Lawless violence and bloody insurrection are how Mckesson and his followers pursue their vision of so-called social justice.

Mckesson led a class that was discussing, “In Defense of Looting,” an essay by Willie Osterweil whose bio at the New Inquiry website describes him as “a writer, editor, and member of the punk band Vulture #.”

Johnetta Elzie (who calls herself ShordeeDooWhop on Twitter and uses the handle @Nettaaaaaaaa), who with Mckesson helped foment unrest in Baltimore, Ferguson, Mo., and other racial hotspots, live-tweeted the Oct. 3 lecture. The tweets suggest the talk was a mixture of black liberation theology, critical race theory, Marxism, and anarchism:

“‘It is interesting this connection between capitalism and racism[.]’”

“‘To not give, is to steal from the poor[.]’”

“‘If you put me in a cage you’re damn right I’m going to break some glass[.]’”

“‘Looting for me isn’t violent, it’s an expression of anger[.]’”

“‘[T]he act of looting is political. [A]nother way to dissolve consent. [P]ressing you to no longer keep me out of this space, by destroying it[.]’”

Osterweil’s pro-looting essay from 2014 is also instructive. He argues that stealing other people’s stuff in times of civil unrest is a “righteous” thing to do.

For most of America’s history, one of the most righteous anti-white supremacist tactics available was looting.

As protests in Ferguson continued unabated one week after the police killing of Michael Brown, Jr., zones of Twitter and the left media predominantly sympathetic to the protesters began angrily criticizing looters. Some claimed that white protesters were the ones doing all of the looting and property destruction, while others worried about the stereotypical and damaging media representation that would emerge. It also seems that there were as many protesters (if not more) in the streets of Ferguson working to prevent looting as there were people going about it. While I disagree with this tactic, I understand that they acted out of care for the struggle, and I want to honor all the brave and inspiring actions they’ve taken over the last weeks.

Radicals who discourage looting in order to protect their leadership positions, “dampen resistance,” and take the ethical high road are misguided, Osterweil writes.

It is in solidarity with these latter protesters—along with those who loot—and against politicians and de-escalators everywhere that I offer this critique, as a way of invigorating discussion amongst those engaged in anti-oppression struggle, in Ferguson and anywhere else the police violently perpetuate white supremacy and settler colonialism. In other words, anywhere in America.

Some “want to correct the media’s assertion that protesters were all looters for good reason: the idea of black people looting a store is one of the most racially charged images in the white imaginary [sic].”

He continues:

When protesters proclaim that “not all protesters were looters, in fact, most of the looters weren’t part of the protest!” or words to that effect, they are trying to fight a horrifically racist history of black people depicted in American culture as robbers and thieves: Precisely the image that the Ferguson police tried to evoke to assassinate Michael Brown’s character and justify his killing post facto. It is a completely righteous and understandable position.

Osterweil opines that the civil rights movement “won many battles” but “it lost the war.”

Regurgitating tired old communist agitprop, Osterweil writes the proof that the Sixties movement lost the war is:

[m]# incarceration, the fact that black wealth and black-white inequality are at the same place they were at the start of the civil rights movement, that many US cities are more segregated now than they were in the sixties: no matter what “colorblind” liberals would say, racial justice has not been won, white supremacy has not been overturned, racism is not over. In fact, anti-black racism remains the foundational organizing principle of this country. That is because this country is built on the right to property, and there is no property, no wealth in the USA without the exploitation, appropriation, murder, and enslavement of black people.

Here Osterweil embraces the same line of reasoning adopted by small-c communist academic and community organizer Richard Cloward, co-originator of the infamous Cloward-Piven Strategy of orchestrated chaos that President Obama has been pursuing since his first day in office. The professor said poor people always need to be ready to seize unearned wealth. “Our strategy always was, grab what you can and run like hell,” Cloward said. Private property is unjust so take what you want.

Sounding like Rules for Radical author Saul Alinsky, Osterweil posits that looting is good for the cause: