Who's Looting Who?

This country and particularly the media seems to be consumed with the destruction of property occurring during the nationwide protests. Yet, black folks have looked destruction in the face for centuries. As I type, over-policing and mass incarceration, and poverty effectively work to defeat even the spirit that remains in black communities. In West Baltimore we are surrounded by destruction - buildings falling down one way or another - the mass demolitions that Maryland governor Hogan ordered after the Baltimore uprising in 2015 leave large swaths of the community vacant - and a policy of neglect that can be traced back to the "urban renewal" that occurred on the heels of the 1968 uprising forces those who can leave to do so while damning the poor to a carceral existence enforced by itchy trigger finger cops.

Our communities in West Baltimore are looted regularly by businesses that profit from the poor, taking the hard earned coins and dollars elsewhere, contributing little if anything to the welfare of the residents. There has been systematic looting of our spaces by elected officials who take folk's votes and forget about them after the election, often implementing policies that do more harm than good. The very lives of black people are subject to plundering on more levels than can be easily conveyed. We take from each other the one thing that is sometimes the only thing we possess - life - because pent up anger and frustration eventually spill over onto the shoes of the person next to you.

Where I live, there are signs of destruction all around me. Ruin. We are a war torn community in a sense. Drugs and poverty have decimated Baltimore, rendering a couple of generations vulnerable, falling upon their heads like bombs. Young people here are faced with the nothingness that their barren environments reflect back to them. It is no wonder that they are protesting in the midst of a pandemic, there are so many things that might kill them, Rona (COVID) is yet just another.

I am not arguing for or against what is happening in the streets, and I understand that there are elements from the far-right that are out there instigating, committing acts of looting and violence and plowing through protestors with vehicles if not taking shots at them. Yet, the supposed leader of this country tweets incendiary statements while the media flashes images of the near looted Lululemon store in SoHo with their over-priced leggings as if there is no relationship between white supremacy, capitalism and the sudden burning of our cities. What we are witnessing is the spreading of the inferno that has been consuming black, brown and Indigenous and poor white communities.

It would seem that these young people have fire in their near empty bellies.