James Baldwin Defines A Looter

Before I get to that, how would you define somebody who puts a cat where he is and takes all the money out of the ghetto where he makes it? Who is looting whom? Grabbing off the TV set? he doesn’t really want the TV set.

He’s saying screw you.

It’s just judgement, by the way, on the value of the TV set. He doesn’t want it.

He wants to let you know that he’s there.

The question I’m trying to raise is a serious question. The mass media television and all the major news agencies-endlessly use that word “looter.” On television you always see black hands reaching in, you know. And so the American public concludes that these savages are trying to steal everything from us, and no one has seriously tried to get where the trouble is. After all, you’re accusing a captive population who has been robbed of everything of looting. I think it’s obscene. Artist: Cristina Martinez