I imagine this has been shared around here somewhere already, but I just stumbled upon Trevor Noah's video talking about all of this and he touches on looting specifically towards the latter half. He frames it really, really well on why looting is always gonna be a natural response to this kind of societal issue because it's symptomatic of failing to uphold societal contracts. In the sense that: those in power agreed to treat those they govern fairly and equally when assuming that position, and so those they govern in return readily agree and conform to the placed upon rules. But as it is now (and has been for basically ever in this country), when black people are systematically treated unfairly, brutalized, and killed it signals that those in power are not upholding their end of the societal bargain, and so, after so much, a person is naturally gonna eventually stop and think, 'well then why should I?' When those who set the law refuse to fairly apply it to themselves and conversely unfairly apply it to black people/minorities and systematically murder them in the process, literally what reason do these folks have to show care for orderly conduct and property in return. Clearly it's not making a difference either way.
He says it all much more profoundly than I could ever begin to summarize his words, so I really recommend giving it a watch:
Essentially, when literally nothing else is working as a solution, escalation is gonna be the inevitable conclusion. If we want to coexist in a society where protest looting isn't a thing that happens, then we need to step up and hold those in power accountable--as they are the real source of the problem here, instead of pointing at black folks and telling them to be calm and peaceful in the face of all the shit they deal with. Like, shit, I'm just a simple white girl and I imagine I'm ignorant as fuck about a lot of things surrounding race and racism (and desperately hope I'm not stepping out of line anywhere here by saying all this), but it still seems clear as freaking day to me that looting is not the real problem nor should it be the focus at hand here. Anyone who is forced to live day in and day out in oppression is going to eventually have a breaking point, and, frankly, that it's primarily just a smattering of theft and property damage in the face of generations of utterly violating injustice is kind of extraordinary.
