The Violence Didn’t Start With the Protests

 

"And yet, against this backdrop of wanton police abuse, there has been no lack of pearl-clutching about the supposed violence of the protests. These critiques seem to rest on the idea that civilian attacks against big-box retail outlets, luxury boutiques, and other inanimate objects are somehow commensurate with the state-funded violence by armed officers against actual black bodies. (Yes, some small businesses were struck, too, but it’s critical that we not allow those targeting them to derail attention from racialized policing.) Tacit rhetorical equivalences between lost commercial products and lost black lives reveal yet again how American racism and capitalism are inextricably intertwined. But this historic moment of nationwide uprisings also demonstrates how white institutional power decides what does and does not qualify as violence in this country—a standard resulting in a national ethos that defines the destruction of buildings as catastrophic but the literal snuffing out of black life by police as merely maintaining “law and order.”

Add to that the daily violence of American systems that are finely calibrated to ensure the rich and powerful remain that way. Which causes more irreparable harm: gutting big-box stores or looting an entire tax system to benefit billionaires who, while we’re on the subject, have gotten precipitously richer as the pandemic has caused unemployment claims to skyrocket? Which is more destructive: burning a building that can be rebuilt or a $2 trillion stimulus package that overwhelmingly gives cash to Americans who already possess more money than they can spend in a lifetime? Violence is a constant embedded in a staggering number of American policies that protect the interests of a tiny but powerful portion of this country. The same folks then create legislation that outlaws a particular brand of violence and disproportionately apply those laws against the most vulnerable. We’ve been living with an astounding amount of violence all this time. The state just calls it something else."
read article by Kali Holloway

The Violence Didn’t Start With the Protests - The Nation ~ Permainan Blogs: