The BLM.com website has no comment on this week’s Chicago riots and looting, but the Chicago branch has spoken. “Black Lives Matter activists in Chicago held a rally Monday evening to stand in solidarity with the dozens of individuals who were arrested after a night of mass looting and criminal activity, with one organizer brazenly defending looting as a form of reparations.”
When a major chapter in a major city rallies about a major event like the destruction of a major Chicago institution, the Magnificent Mile, then we are entitled to attribute these comments to the BLM organization. We will halt this connection and take back this attribution when Ms. Atkins recants her remarks or when BLM central disavows her statements and condemns them. Until that time, we now have a clear admission that BLM stands for rioting and looting; and we also know the altogether immoral, illegitimate, stupid, ignorant, phony, anti-social, destructive and flimsy basis upon which their support stands for this property destruction and property theft.
The comments were made by the BLM rally organizer, Ariel Atkins. She said
“I don’t care if someone decides to loot a Gucci or a Macy’s or a Nike store, because that makes sure that person eats. That makes sure that person has clothes. That is reparations. Anything they wanted to take, they can take it because these businesses have insurance.”
I commend Ms. Atkins for being so upfront in her remarks, even if they are completely wrong. The looters are not starving. They are not naked or wearing rags. And neither is the well-fed Ms. Atkins. Theft is not reparations in any form. Insurance is not a free lunch, as anyone with car and house insurance knows. A business with insurance against riots will pay higher premiums the more riots there are, and this added cost will increase the prices to paying consumers.
There is hunger in Cook County and there are organizations fighting it, like Greater Chicago Food Depository. If BLM wants to have food drives and clothing drives, if it wants to help people enroll for aid, and if it wants to transport people to places offering bargain clothing and food, it can. But looting? Are you kidding? This is not even directed at the problems of poverty. Does anyone seriously believe that this riot was an uprising of hungry people in rags demanding justice through unilateral and totally irregular reparations? We are told “Car caravans reportedly enabled the looters to steal the greatest amount of property they could.”
Who owns those businesses? Who has a property interest in those businesses? It would be surprising if they were only white people and excluded all black people. Who determined that these businesses owed these looters these reparations? There is no trace of any justice in this Magnificent Mile looting.
Is self-initiated looting supposed to be equated to laudable charity that’s designed to fend off hunger pangs and cold? Are we supposed to believe such nonsense?
Ms. Atkins has made up a fairy tale, which she may or may not herself believe. It does not matter, because either way, whether she’s cynical or not, she’s encouraging mass theft and mass disorder. She’s attempting to justify thievery, malicious destruction, envy and greed. It cannot be done. BLM now stands even more clearly accused of standing for and encouraging riots and theft.
3:46 pm on August 11, 2020
