West Central Reporter

Since the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery this year, protests and riots have been witnessed in many cities throughout the nation. While some advocated for these actions, as well as looting, local business owners say otherwise.

NPR reported on Aug. 27 an interview by Natalie Escobar, who spoke with writer Vicky Osterweil, author of a book defending the act of looting, claiming that looting was a powerful way to send a message and bring about societal change.

"When I use the word looting, I mean the mass expropriation of property, mass shoplifting during a moment of upheaval or riot," Osterweil told Escobar in the NPR interview. "That's the thing I'm defending."

West Central Reporter interviewed a business owner, who shared her opinion on looting and rioting.

"No, it is never ok to loot," Kem Wilson, owner and operator of The Look Studio & Day Spa in South Jacksonville, told West Central Reporter.

"There is never a reason or circumstance or appropriate to loot or riot or cause arson. Totally unacceptable," Wilson said.

Wilson, who is also the precinct committeewoman for South Jacksonville No. 4, also said that he believes the Black Lives Matter and Antifa groups target businesses based on ethnicity.

Osterweil said that there are many misperceptions about looting and rioting and that plenty of recent events show essential distinctions.

"But looters and rioters don't attack private homes," Osterweil told Escobar in the NPR interview. "They don't attack community centers. In Minneapolis, there was a small independent bookstore that was untouched. All the blocks around it were basically looted or even leveled, burned down. And that store just remained untouched through weeks of rioting."

Osterweil said that sometimes it is necessary to experience scary events to make the needed changes, and looting may provide the lighter fluid to make those changes.

"We have to be willing to do things that scare us and that we wouldn't do in normal, 'peaceful' times because we need to get free," Osterweil told Escobar in the NPR interview.