A professor at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s alma mater believes that there is nothing wrong with black people rioting and looting for a reason they themselves justify because other people’s property is “racist” and taking what doesn’t belong to them is a way to get over “slavery.”
In a video that surfaced last week posted by the institution, Boston University assistant professor Saida Grundy compared looting in the aftermath of George Floyd‘s death to black people “looting themselves” from slavery. She also urged people not to judge communities’ reactions and to listen to them to address their needs.
“I think it’s very important for people who see reactions in communities not to judge or make assumptions about what is good and not good reactions. And not actually re-victimize communities by saying there’s an acceptable and not acceptable way to react.”— @BU_CAS‘s Saida Grundy pic.twitter.com/FK85qVF3Xf
— Boston University (@BU_Tweets) May 25, 2022
“We hear President Biden say, you know, I understand your frustrations but don’t destroy property,” Grundy says in the video. “Well, when you say that to black people who historically have been property, one of our greatest weapons against injustice was the looting of ourselves as property from the system of slavery.”
“And what we see in communities is they’re reacting to the very racism of what we call property,” Grundy added.
Grundy is a “feminist sociologist of race & ethnicity” who teaches women’s and gender studies, sociology and African-American studies, according to Boston University. Her prior research has examined masculinity and “social justice capitalism” as well as “racialized rape culture.”
Just to be clear, the police officers charged in connection with George Floyd’s death are being held accountable. The officer who knelt on his neck for over nine minutes — Derek Chauvin — has been convicted of second- and third-degree murder and likely will spend most if not all of the rest of his natural life behind bars. The other three officers charged in connection with the death are going to stand trial as well; anyone who seriously believes they will escape justice hasn’t been paying attention.
The vast majority of Americans found the death of Floyd, regardless of his past or the situation for which he was being detained, disturbing. It is hard to watch the video of Chauvin kneeling over him and not be sickened by it. But trying to justify the destruction and theft of other people’s property who had nothing to do with Floyd’s demise is equally disturbing, especially when that justification is couched in an institution — slavery — that has not existed in our country for more than a century-and-a-half. We are well past the point where the “but..but…slavery!” argument is inconsequential, intellectually lazy, and inappropriate.
We cannot survive as a country if we sanction violence and destruction as the go-to response for injustice, perceived or otherwise. What’s more, without a civil society that punishes wrongdoing as in the case of Floyd, have no doubt that the injustices would be far worse, much more frequent, and widespread.
What happened to Floyd is a rarity in America, and the statistics bear that out. Destroy our social fabric, however, and they’ll be much more frequent. Why would any responsible American want that?
