While the city burns.

The idea of “peaceful protests” is a silencing of public discourse re: the brutality of the state. When you live in a state that inflicts death and violence upon people, “peace” is a construct. Its opposite is not necessarily violence but also not daisies in rifles. Think harder. — Yasmin Nair

I know people are going to disagree with me. But the fear we’re feeling due to the protests tonight, imagine feeling that sort of fear everyday. Now magnify that fear to every facet of living in our society. That’s why the country is on fire right now.

A response to the focus on looting:

It’s more nuanced than someone carrying out a 65” TV or assuming it’s all naivety towards progress.

I’m anxious about what’s going on out there. I also don’t feel safe tonight. And I’m grateful that’s not how I feel every day I walk outside. Unfortunately for the reality we live in, Black Americans and the marginalized face day-to-day with fear. It’s not a “what-if” — it’s reality (A Decade of Watching Black People Die).

And protests in all their forms are complex reactions to the continued systemic murder of Blacks, the Indigenous, people of color, the marginalized, the poor, LGBTQ, and it is, well, it’s complex (‘Massive eruption,’ like Minneapolis protests, is what drives change: Experts).

We expect the oppressed to have infallible virtue when, as a society, tolerate much more from the rich, the powerful, and the status quo. I’m not groovy with people stealing Nikes or 65” TV’s during a protest. But also, people are protesting blatant systemic murder and they’re protesting what the powers-that-be get away with all the time.

Protests typically include all walks of life, not everyone with the ability to articulate frustration the way you or I assume how you should articulate frustration (Looting is a response, not an opportunity). So while companies get away with tax breaks while exploiting workers (Appreciated or exploited? Key workers in a coronavirus world Let us thank front-line workers with more than just words — let us reward them with decent pay and conditions), while the country continues to take away more native land for more [insert any multitude of reasons that a quick Google search will surface] (Violence is on the rise toward indigenous protestors), while our leaders continue exploiting the pandemic as 100,000 people—predominantly Black Americans—die (American billionaires got $434 billion richer during the pandemic), and while Blacks continue to be systemically murdered (reference the link from earlier), I just feel those sneakers don’t really matter compared to the bigger theft happening to lives across the country. Yes, even when it “lets bad eggs get away with vandalism.”

The sneakers and the TVs and the storefronts (despite the insurance policies tied to them) seems unsightly to us because unsightly affects us. Unsightly affects the status quo. All of the other things going on that affects lives, while we’re cognitively disgusted by it, we have more tolerance for it, because it’s more abstract to us. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want a Tales of Two Cities. I don’t want to side with the “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” nobles (I know Marie-Antoinette didn’t actually say that), and I don’t want to be on the side of the beheading mobs either.

But actual people are dying. Every day. And we’re outraged when property gets destroyed. It sucks. I don’t want stores being broken into for 65” TVs. But I don’t care about those televisions when it’s in contrast to lives. Like that of George Floyds. Eric Garner. Tamir Rice. Philando Castile. Tanisha Anderson. Countless names.

I get why the city is on fire. And that’s what I’m saying here.

May the city burn less tomorrow.

And may we give it a reason to stop burning.