The "Bricks and Mortar" defense is something that in a society that claims to value lives sounds like it should be true. However, in the context of the riots, is problematic.
The reason it's problematic is that it is a distortion and false representation of what people are actually saying.
1. It ignores or misstates that many of the buildings burned down contained businesses, and that businesses are people.
A. In the case of the large businesses, it's the people who work there, shop there, bank there, or otherwise patronize the business. It's the parents who can't got to the store for necessities or to the drug store for medication.
B. In the case of small business, the buildings contained years of effort, money, sacrifices, and dreams. To many people, owning your own business is the pinnacle of the American Dream, yet we've seen business owners who've weathered 2 months of being shut down see their business destroyed on the cusp of reopening.
2. It ignores or misstates the fact that private property is foundational to our economic system and tto deprive someone of their private property does in fact harm the property owner.
3. It's simplistic. It ignores the fact that most humans can acknowledge that wrongly killing a person is a horrific thing, and they can acknowledge that wanton destruction of both property as well as people's lives is also horrific. They aren't the same, they aren't equal, but acknowledging both doesn't diminish either.
4. It ignores the plight of the thousands of Twin Cities residents who live in substandard housing. This affordable housing deficit is partially caused by the city/county governments. The fact that 400 families who had hope of access to newly constructed affordable housing, now don't have that hope is a real blow to those families.
5. Insurance can be expensive. Many small business owners have had to cut expenses because they've been denied customers, to varying degrees, since March. Often, one budget item that gets cut when money gets tight is insurance. To blithely assume that everyone who owns a business has enough insurance to get through the rebuilding phase unaffected is shortsighted and foolish. Further, what of the business owner who has adequate insurance, but who's landlord decided to forgo insurance? Insurance is a great thing, but it's rarely ever a 100% substitute for business income.
George Floyd's death was a tragedy. It was an avoidable tragedy. First, he could have chosen not to engage in the behavior that caused the Cup Foods employee to call 911. That may be difficult to accept, but it's true. Second, the city of MPLS could have done a better job of disciplining/reassigning/firing Chauvin so he wouldn't have been anywhere near 38th and Chicago. Third, the other officers could/should have intervened and gotten Chauvin off of Floyd. Fourth, the bystanders could have intervened (I know that would have entailed risk to them, but I think that "laying down one's life for a friend" is a pretty good thing), I'm pretty familiar with that corner and can't believe that there weren't enough bystanders around to have affected the situation. I'm sure there are other ways that Floyd's death could have been avoided. Yet once Floyd was killed, the rioting, looting, arson, etc was not inevitable, it could have been avoided as well.
I'll close by saying that despite the harm inflicted some of the innocent citizens of MPLS, their fellow citizens (from throughout the metro) have banded together to provide necessities, to clean up the damage, to donate millions of dollars to pay for rebuilding. These aren't things that the city/county government have done. It's an organic, multi ethnic, multi generational, outpouring of concern for those harmed by the rioters. It's that sort of coming together around a tragedy that will go a long way towards healing.
