Why the CVS Burned

Slate ^ | May 1 2015 | Louis Hyman

[Second Amendment First]

The rioting in Baltimore wasn’t hooliganism. It was a protest against the depredations of the ghetto economy.

Most people can sympathize with the anger on display this week in the streets of Baltimore. It’s relatively easy to feel compassion for people who’ve suffered police brutality and abject poverty, even if you’ve never experienced either. Looting and burning is harder to understand, since torching a CVS store would hardly seem to have anything to do with protesting the actions of the Baltimore Police Department. President Obama decried the Baltimore riots as “senseless violence and destruction.” Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake also despaired at the destruction. “We worked so hard to get a company like CVS to invest in this neighborhood,” she said, “this is the only place that so many people have to pick up their prescriptions.” Why would anyone burn down the only CVS in their neighborhood?

The reason, I think, is likely the same reason that poor black Americans in cities across the country burned “their own” neighborhoods in the late 1960s: They did not experience those places as their own. Then, like now, police brutality was a precipitating cause of the violence, but it was the long-term experience of the indignities of the ghetto that gave shape to the riots. Then, like now, commentators compared the rioters to animals who had run wild and needed discipline. Rioting, to these bystanders, was not proper political protest but the criminal actions of poor people who merely wanted to grab what they could for free. This narrative, which I heard throughout my childhood growing up in Baltimore in the 1980s, put the blame not on the depredations of the ghetto, but on the character of its residents. It completely misapprehends the political economy of our poorest neighborhoods.

[Nifster]

Liberal insanity...white guilt masquerading as thoughtful exposition.

This is what progressivism produces....drivel and blather trying to pander to those who would rob him blind

[Altura Ct.]

Sure they are. I see them refer to themselves as people of color frequently.

[mrsmith]

Yes, without “stable breeding populations” the concept of race is losing it’s utility.
Also the localization of races led to cultural distinctions that could be made between them.

Nowadays the concept is pretty much of use to just Democrat politicians and, very occasionally, to doctors.

[NativeSon]

Is this the new excuse because “racist white cops” fell apart?

[driftless2]

It’s interesting that a very high percentage of commenters refused to swallow the professor’s bullsh.t theory about the goals of the rioters. Maybe even the readers of lib mags like Slate are beginning to see the light. Sometimes a thug is just a thug.

[driftless2]

You left out Coolidge.

[Churchillspirit]

Great post !

[super7man]

Most people can sympathize with the anger on display this week in the streets of Baltimore.

Well, I guess I'm not most people. I do not understand the source of the anger. These people have been given incredible opportunities but will not take advantage of them. To bad, so sad.

It’s relatively easy to feel compassion for people who’ve suffered police brutality and abject poverty, even if you’ve never experienced either.

I have experienced neither. I worked to put my own way through college. I studied and graduated at the top of my class. I got married and stayed married (35 years and going). Sorry, I have little compassion for those suffering from their own undoing.

[Cen-Tejas]

Hmmm, Dr. Hyman doesn’t use the “Dr.” In his name.

Uh, Dr. Hyman, as a Harvard grad, and being 38, it goes without saying you think you know everything.

Freepers won’t read long posts so let me just say you don’t (know everything).

But, I can’t help but tell you that down here in Texas we have a million “sayings”. And one of them reminds me of you. It goes “ you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make em drink”. In the political affairs of our country, Liberals like you have proved this “saying” valid beyond all doubt.

[GOPJ]

A white liberal elite fantasy...

[GOPJ]

Burning credit records, it was hoped, would erase those debts. Also targeted were so-called “easy credit” appliance stores, which sold shoddy goods, like used televisions, at usurious interest rates. By the late-’60s, televisions were as common in ghetto households as suburban ones. The difference was that ghetto televisions weren’t new, often didn’t work, and almost always cost more.

Everything cost more in the ghetto because black 'leaders' fight to keep big stores like Walmart out... not saying they're on the take or anything - but they're on the take.

[Larry381]

They burned down the CVS because they are stupid, short-sighted subhuman thugs.

It didn't hurt any that CVS had some bad-ass drugs behind the pharmacy counter and in the drug safe.
It doesn't appear that there was any of the "good stuff" left to catch fire.

Same thing happened in NYC during the sixties riots-drug stores, liquor stores and furniture stores just happened to catch fire-after they were looted.

[Milton Miteybad]

Mr. Hyman...the CVS in Baltimore burned for a very simple reason.

It burned because people who didn't care one bit about the property of others set fire to it.

That's it, pal. That's all you needed to write. Anything else was completely beside the point.

I'm glad we had this little chat, Mr. Hyman. Please feel free to write if I may be of further assistance.

[Nuc 1.1]

Mr. Hyman,

The abuse suffered by black folks comes at the hands of the democrat party. When the blacks finally wake up there will be hell to pay.

[MasterGunner01]

“Everything costs more in the ghetto because black”...customers and employees keep stealing stock off the store's shelves and racks or from storage. This stock “shrinkage” has to be recovered by the store in order to survive. This means higher prices (due to increased risks and costs), more security (active and passive), entry and exit changes (more security) taken, and closer employee vetting.

Nevertheless, a store can only do so much before it can no longer afford to do business in a certain area. Then it comes down to cutting further losses and shutting the doors for good. Notice that once the local inhabitants drive their local stores out, no stores are willing to come back? There is a reason and everyone knows why but they cannot say the truth. The truth isn't PC.

[zzeeman]

Scr3w Louis Hyman and Slate.

[Frank_2001]

“I have been in slums outside of major cities in south and central America. “

And those are DESPERATE! America has the wealthiest, fattest poor people on Earth! But what has historically been the basis of Baltimore’s economy? The great-grandfathers of today’s rioters must have been productively employed...is the town a casualty of US industries’ mad dash to China?

[Nowhere Man]

Nevertheless, a store can only do so much before it can no longer afford to do business in a certain area. Then it comes down to cutting further losses and shutting the doors for good. Notice that once the local inhabitants drive their local stores out, no stores are willing to come back? There is a reason and everyone knows why but they cannot say the truth. The truth isn't PC.

I work in a major department store in a mall west of Pittsburgh and I know that various brands such as Hurley, Sean John, Truk-Fit, Levis, Polo and so forth have security tags on them, sometimes more than one. The truth is that a lot of those items are the most stolen and with the mall being easily reached by public transportation, the demographic of the first three brands come from the inner city, knowhutimean? Well, most of the buyers of those brands are Black. We also have to ask customers to apply for the store credit card and there are times I get a few inner city Blacks to apply for one but they get turned down because they have the credit score of a rock yet I've seen them whip out $500 for clothes like Polo and so forth. Crap, I work hard and that is more than my rent plus I'm struggling.

To top it off, I had a customer spend like close to $300 on name brands like Nike and Polo and as she whipped out the cash, I noticed a welfare access card in her wallet. I have nothing against welfare for those who truly need the help but two questions crossed my mind. Question One was if she is so poor an on welfare, I do think it is wise to spend so much on clothes where there are cheaper alternatives that do the same job. It is just like where you're poor and you buy a Caddy where a Chevy will do. Question Two, if she is on welfare, does she truly need it if she can buy name brands? She seemed to me that she is lucky to have the intelligence of a duck. BTW, she was White so although on a per capita basis, there are more Blacks on welfare than White but as a whole there are more Whites overall. The welfare mentality goes across racial and ethnic lines. I just had these thoughts since myself, I cannot afford what I sell.

[Nowhere Man]

Errata: “I do NOT think is it wise to spend so much on those brands of clothes.” I was thinking faster than I type.

[MasterGunner01]

For some unknown reason, the people you've described think that these brands give them a certain “cred” with their friends in the ‘hood. And yes, it IS stupid.

Long ago, I had a friend (divorced with one boy and one girl). The girl was really a clothes horse — she wanted top of the line, brand name clothes. Bluntly, these name brand clothes did not wear well or she out grew them due to a growth spurt. I told my friend: when you throw the brand name clothes way, cut of the labels. Go buy good, well made clothes from what she thinks are “off brands” and then sew on these old logo tags. Your daughter and her little friends are fixated by the brand tags; they probably won't even notice the clothes themselves.