I'm starting a book club! The reading list will be the books that have shaped me and my outlook on the world.
Current Book: In Defense of Looting by Vicky Osterweil
Why I chose it: Both capitalism and policing are actually relatively recent inventions that are built upon racial notions of property. It helped me to see that property is not about effort and fairness, but exploitation and exclusion. With the fog cleared it's easier for me to advocate for human dignity that not only guarantees basic human needs like food, water, shelter, but also joy and happiness. Vicky also provides insight to how "news" media is propagandistic and common fallacies.
"A reflection on violence as a form of social protest that can lead to social change." ―New York Journal of Books"[In Defense of Looting] is as much an argument for the possibilities of a riot as it is a reckoning between history as it happens and history as it is read.... [Osterweil's] readings of history lend the book its exhilarating quality and make anything seem possible." ―Frieze"In Defense of Looting is a clear and damning indictment of the origins and evolution of property rights, race, and policing in the United States. Ultimately, Osterweil demands we not only overcome the respectability politics animating our desire for 'peaceful protests,' but that we ambitiously work to abolish the racial capitalist logics at the heart of American empire." ―Zoé Samudzi, coauthor of As Black As Resistance"In engaging and accessible prose, Vicky Osterweil lays out an intellectual defense of looting that is as thorough and compelling as it is necessary and revolutionary. The history here is alive and vital, and Osterweil's grasp of it pushes any reader who has doubted the legitimacy of looting as a political action to search deeply and reconsider their position." ―Mychal Denzel Smith, author of Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream"With the right ideas at the right time, Vicky Osterweil has given us a powerful tool for resistance in the 21st century. In Defense of Looting could change American politics forever." ―Malcolm Harris, author of Kids These Days: The Making of Millennials"A passionate, in-depth study of one of history's most radical-and reviled-forms of direct action. In clear, precise prose, Osterweil lays bare the racialized settler-colonial roots of policing and property in the US, outlines the possibilities of militant resistance, and emphasizes the necessity of Black and Indigenous liberation. In Defense of Looting is a bracing and necessary read, written with great care and radical hope. As Osterweil herself says, 'The future is ours to take. We just need to loot it.'" ―Kim Kelly, labor columnist, Teen Vogue"In this book the act of looting is the starting point for challenging the conventional beliefs around people, property, and justice. How we treat looting, whose acts are considered looting, and what is looted frame essential interventions in understanding uprising. The stakes are not of 'stuff,' TVs, and clothes; they're about ourselves and our communities. Whether at the policy level or in our personal daily politics, the historical insights and moral clarity of this book illuminate a way forward from the real crimes that structure our society." ―Ayesha A. Siddiqi, writer and emeritus editor-in-chief of The New Inquiry
