If it’s actually a good faith conversation, and not just people justifying their bigotry, you can emphasize that the time to intervene to avoid that destruction has already passed. The unrest is just the release of tension that’s built up over time, and it’s not going to erupt according to the preferences of small business owners.
If folks are mad about the end of the process, the anger and destruction, they should be mad at the racism that sets the process into motion.
Talking about the morality about individual acts within the context of a riot/uprising is pointless. It's like debating the morality of water boiling when it's heated about 100 C. If you're working in that framework you're gonna get nowhere.
If they don't want riots that destroy things, which will inevitably include things that they think are good just because of the law of averages, then they should be in favor of stopping the conditions that lead to riots.
expecting every single member of a pissed off group of protesters to have perfect discipline is a ridiculous standard that no group of protesters not tacitly accepted by the state could meet
at some point, we have to recognize that not everyone saying "why don't X protest in Y manner" will ever actually accept legitimate protests
Lots of good answers already; another one is to point out that neoliberal economics have done infinitely more to damage small businesses than any protest. Outsourcing and public handouts to large corporations have burned millions of storefronts. If they're outraged at one store being burnt, where's their outrage at the brutal results of free-market capitalism?
Just quote MLKs explanation of the riots, it'll break their brains as all they know is the whitewashed school history version of him.
Urban riots must now be recognized as durable social phenomena. They may be deplored, but they are there and should be understood. Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest.
The looting which is their principal feature serves many functions. It enables the most enraged and deprived Negro to take hold of consumer goods with the ease the white man does by using his purse. Often the Negro does not even want what he takes; he wants the experience of taking. But most of all, alienated from society and knowing that this society cherishes property above people, he is shocking it by abusing property rights.
There are thus elements of emotional catharsis in the violent act. This may explain why most cities in which riots have occurred have not had a repetition, even though the causative conditions remain. It is also noteworthy that the amount of physical harm done to white people other than police is infinitesimal and in Detroit whites and Negroes looted in unity.
A profound judgment of today's riots was expressed by Victor Hugo a century ago. He said, 'If a soul is left in the darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but he who causes the darkness.'
The policymakers of the white society have caused the darkness; they create discrimination; they structured slums; and they perpetuate unemployment, ignorance and poverty. It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society. When we ask Negroes to abide by the law, let us also demand that the white man abide by law in the ghettos .
Day-in and day-out he violates welfare laws to deprive the poor of their meager allotments; he flagrantly violates building codes and regulations; his police make a mockery of law; and he violates laws on equal employment and education and the provisions for civic services. The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of the white society; Negroes live in them but do not make them any more than a prisoner makes a prison.
Let us say boldly that if the violations of law by the white man in the slums over the years were calculated and compared with the law-breaking of a few days of riots, the hardened criminal would be the white man. These are often difficult things to say but I have come to see more and more that it is necessary to utter the truth in order to deal with the great problems that we face in our society.
-MLK Jr.
The full speech is available here:
https://www.apa.org/monitor/features/king-challenge#
They are just as much a victim of a system that makes people desperate with no other option but to riot. Destroying working people's livelihoods isn't the aim or purpose of any left movement.
I don’t think there’s any “conservative” way to nudge them to the left on this except maybe to point out similar protests that they agree with in whatever color revolution/etc they’ve seen (but the cognitive dissonance of other gov=bad, my gov=good is a strong one to overcome). But for us, we know that demonstrations like this do not and should not occur within the framework of bourgeois morality imposed on us. Don’t forget too that many small businesses utilize the same practices as large ones in terms of wage theft and other class warfare, so it isn’t as though they’re innocent- they’ve just got a more human face than when a Target or a bank burns down, so it’s easier for chuds to share New York Post articles that attack the protestors themselves rather than the conditions that led to the protests.
Your conservative parents are dimwits and you will never be able to justify justice to them. Socioeconomically though, these small businesses tend to be a lot more plugged into the municipal political machines than your average prole. They may not have the power of the landlords or real estate developers, but their interests lie much closer to the YIMBY gentrifiers than the tenants and long term community members. They had the potential to lobby for better conditions all this time, but never stuck their neck out.
The central argument is that small business owners are not the fucking heroes they're made out to be. Some small businesses serve institutional roles in a community, but the vast majority do not. The vast majority of the community are not small business owners. Anyone crying about small businesses getting smashed up who was silent every time the cops smashed up homeless encampments can go fuck themselves. That's my take.
deleted by creator
If it’s actually a good faith conversation, and not just people justifying their bigotry, you can emphasize that the time to intervene to avoid that destruction has already passed. The unrest is just the release of tension that’s built up over time, and it’s not going to erupt according to the preferences of small business owners.
If folks are mad about the end of the process, the anger and destruction, they should be mad at the racism that sets the process into motion.
Talking about the morality about individual acts within the context of a riot/uprising is pointless. It's like debating the morality of water boiling when it's heated about 100 C. If you're working in that framework you're gonna get nowhere.
If they don't want riots that destroy things, which will inevitably include things that they think are good just because of the law of averages, then they should be in favor of stopping the conditions that lead to riots.
insurance
expecting every single member of a pissed off group of protesters to have perfect discipline is a ridiculous standard that no group of protesters not tacitly accepted by the state could meet
at some point, we have to recognize that not everyone saying "why don't X protest in Y manner" will ever actually accept legitimate protests
No sizable group of any kind that uses any violence could meet that standard, period. Cops and the military do tons of collateral damage.
Lots of good answers already; another one is to point out that neoliberal economics have done infinitely more to damage small businesses than any protest. Outsourcing and public handouts to large corporations have burned millions of storefronts. If they're outraged at one store being burnt, where's their outrage at the brutal results of free-market capitalism?
Just quote MLKs explanation of the riots, it'll break their brains as all they know is the whitewashed school history version of him.
The full speech is available here:
https://www.apa.org/monitor/features/king-challenge#
King
They are just as much a victim of a system that makes people desperate with no other option but to riot. Destroying working people's livelihoods isn't the aim or purpose of any left movement.
I don’t think there’s any “conservative” way to nudge them to the left on this except maybe to point out similar protests that they agree with in whatever color revolution/etc they’ve seen (but the cognitive dissonance of other gov=bad, my gov=good is a strong one to overcome). But for us, we know that demonstrations like this do not and should not occur within the framework of bourgeois morality imposed on us. Don’t forget too that many small businesses utilize the same practices as large ones in terms of wage theft and other class warfare, so it isn’t as though they’re innocent- they’ve just got a more human face than when a Target or a bank burns down, so it’s easier for chuds to share New York Post articles that attack the protestors themselves rather than the conditions that led to the protests.
Your conservative parents are dimwits and you will never be able to justify justice to them. Socioeconomically though, these small businesses tend to be a lot more plugged into the municipal political machines than your average prole. They may not have the power of the landlords or real estate developers, but their interests lie much closer to the YIMBY gentrifiers than the tenants and long term community members. They had the potential to lobby for better conditions all this time, but never stuck their neck out.
The central argument is that small business owners are not the fucking heroes they're made out to be. Some small businesses serve institutional roles in a community, but the vast majority do not. The vast majority of the community are not small business owners. Anyone crying about small businesses getting smashed up who was silent every time the cops smashed up homeless encampments can go fuck themselves. That's my take.