Peering beneath the ashes of a destroyed city lies the Phoenix of liberation and justice waiting to take flight. Like who wouldn’t want to be pro-life? Often, these narratives take a narrow, biased perspective to squash any variation with regard to the actions of those engaged in an act that Osterweil rightly characterized as “joyous and liberatory”. To become the promise set forth by our forepersons and to guide ourselves to the world we all want to live in. It’s a good title and I’m sure it’s selling it very well, and it’s getting a lot of press. Recently, author and activist Vicky Osterweil was interviewed on NPR to discuss her new book “In Defense of Looting” a powerful, yet radical take on the idea that looting serves a tactical purpose and should not be outright condemned. Osterweil poignantly discusses the point in full: “Looting strikes at the heart of property, of whiteness and of the police. For many Americans, they are only now learning about the Tulsa massacre on Black Wall Street (thanks in part to the success of HBO's The Watchmen), yet when we do read about the events on that day and leading up to it, we hear one side and that side is that of the white oppressors, mainly police and government agencies and how they destroyed a city, community, and they body count in which they took. I’ve read Fanon’s work, but it wasn’t actually very crucial for this book. Once you’ve framed it that way, you’ve already lost the fight, you know? Just as important as it is to learn the history of white supremacy in the US, it is equally as important to know, and celebrate the Black individuals, groups, and organizations that fought back and understanding the tactics they used to defend themselves. Andrew Keen: I don’t mean that necessarily critically either for you or Fanon. Subscribe now on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever else you find your podcasts! We believe in the statement “People over property” and we stand poised to expedite the process of joyous liberation offered by Therapeutic Property Diminishment. If History is any guide, mob rule always fails to deliver true justice. This take brings home the truth that "property" as we know it today was attained through slavery, genocide, and the toxic masculinity of our colonizing forefathers who looted their way through the world to arrive on top. When the film Do The Right Thing came out in 1989, Spike Lee was criticized because, in the film, a group of black youngsters loot a white-owned pizzeria. Yet looting has a long, often ignored history in uprisings as author and columnist Vicky Osterweil demonstrates in her new book In Defense of Looting (August 25, 2020, Bold Type Books). So it’s not in defense of violence, but I certainly am hoping that people take a different view of nonviolence after reading the book. Created by Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature. One Author’s Argument ‘In Defense Of Looting’ In the past months of demonstrations for Black lives, there has been a lot of hand-wringing about looting. Comments such as this highlight the liberal mindset that looting, rioting, and property destruction must be condemned fails to account for the history, dating back to the 1600s in which the use of such radical tactics shaped the future of this county. Recently, author and activist Vicky Osterweil was interviewed on NPR to discuss her new book “In Defense of Looting” a powerful, yet radical take on the idea that looting serves a tactical purpose and should not be outright condemned. Property diminishment adds accelerant to the process of abolition, a collective growing pain for which many property owners are left to bear. Andrew Keen: I don’t know how you came up with the title of the book. While these pundits agree on little else around the Black Lives Matter uprisings, they do seem to agree that looting must be condemned and those taking part shamed, arrested if possible, and prosecuted. It’s the very reason why we’ve created this organization: to acknowledge the transformative power of property diminishment, but to do so in a way that benefits all parties. They might have worked in those shops. So I think the nonviolence-violence dichotomy, which, you know, under that framework, violence includes both the murder of Breonna Taylor in her home and the smashing of a window in response to her murder.