Businesses, many of them minority-owned, are struggling to put back the pieces after several days of violence that have left shops destroyed, buildings burned to the ground, and the livelihoods these stores provided in jeopardy.
What began as a lawful protest over the death of George Floyd is now chaos, thanks to the violent instigators who have taken advantage of this moment to wreak havoc. And what’s troubling is that these rioters are hurting the very people these protests are supposed to help: black Americans.
In New York City, an unidentified black woman pleaded with rioters to put an end to the violence after her store, the Valentine Deli Corp, which she owns, was looted.
“Look what you did to my store — look! Look what you did to my store. We’ve been here all night cleaning up, all night cleaning,” she says in a viral video. “Now tell me ‘black lives matter.’ You lied.”
Elsewhere in Minneapolis, Brandy Moore stood in front of the charred remains of her clothing store, which she started from the trunk of her car back in 2011, and wondered whether she’d be able to reopen the store in its current location. Like every other business owner, Moore was forced to close during the coronavirus pandemic and suffer massive profit losses. And now, she’s not sure if she’ll ever be able to make back what she lost.
Whether she’s insured shouldn’t matter, Moore said, because what matters is the time and effort she put into building a business that is now in ashes.
“When you get it out the mud — meaning when you get it on your own, no handouts … someone just handing you money doesn’t equate,” she told USA Today. “It’s deeper than that.”
“I’m hurt that I lost this. But I can’t cry right now,” she explained. “I can’t go home and cry and be hurt because I lost businesses. George Floyd lost his life. He’ll never be here again.”
It’s enough, though, to point out that monetary and physical losses can be recouped. An injustice is an injustice, no matter the circumstances, and there is a real human cost to the injustice we’re watching unfold.
