It has been two weeks since the death of 46-year-old George Floyd following his arrest at the hands of four former Minneapolis police officers.
Floyd's death sparked unrest across the US, as protests saw people come together to call out the systemic injustices carried out against black people - not least seen by the recent deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor.
As well as a call for justice, these ongoing protests - some peaceful, some violent - are demanding an end to police brutality and the racism that is so deeply entrenched in America and the western world. The message is simple: Black lives matter.
However, for many people, the message is being lost, as countless videos of looters are being circulated on social media.
Now, one author by the name of Kimberly Latrice Jones has gone viral for perfectly explaining why some people are looting - by using the popular board game Monopoly as an analogy.
You can see Jones' passionate speech below:Kimberly was recorded by filmmaker David Jones, who captioned the video: "How Can We Win.
"On Saturday, May 30th, I felt compelled to go out and serve the community in some way. I decided to use my art to try and explain the events that were currently impacting our lives. On day two, Sunday the 31st, I activated my dear friend author Kimberly Jones to tag along and conduct interviews. During a moment of downtime I captured these powerful words from her and felt the world couldn’t wait for the full-length documentary, they needed to hear them now."
In the video, Ms. Jones explains the reasoning behind some people's actions, saying:
"When you have a civil unrest like this, you have three types of people – protesters, rioters and looters.
"Protesters are there because they actually care about what is happening in the community, they want to raise their voices and are there strictly to protest […] rioters who are angry, who are anarchists and who really just want to f**k s**t up and they’re going to do that regardless and then you have the looters and looters are just there to do that, to loot."
She then went on to address the people who are questioning looting, telling them: "You’re focusing on the 'What' and not focusing on the 'Why'.
"Some say well [looters] are not people who are legitimately angry about what’s happening, they’re just people who just want to get stuff so let’s go with that and say what it is.
"Let’s ask ourselves why in this country in 2020, why the financial gap between poor blacks and the rest of the world is at such a distance that people feel their only hope and only opportunity to get some of the things that we flaunt and flash in front of them all the time is to walk through a broken glass window and get it.
"That they are so hopeless that getting that necklace, or chain, or TV, or bed or phone, whatever they want to get is that in that moment when riots happen that’s their only opportunity to get it.
"Why are people that poor? Why are people that broke? Why are people that food insecure, clothing insecure that they feel their only shot is walking through a broken glass window and getting it."
Jones then explained the situation by using Monopoly as an example: "Let me explain to you something about economics in America.
"We never get that economics was the reason that black people were brought to this country, they came to do agricultural work in the south and textile work in the north.
"Now, if I right now decided that I wanted to play Monopoly with you and for 400 rounds of playing Monopoly I didn’t allow you to have any money, I didn’t allow you to have anything on the board – anything – and then we played another 50 rounds of Monopoly and everything that you gained and you earned while playing those rounds was taken from you."
Ms Jones then referenced Tulsa and Rosewood – two self-sufficient and thriving African-American towns from the early 20th century that were decimated by white mobs.
She continued:
"So for 400 rounds of Monopoly you don’t get to play at all, not only do you not get to play, you have to play on behalf of the person that you’re playing against, you have to earn money and wealth for them and then you have to turn it over to them.
"And then for 50 years you finally get a little bit and you’re allowed to play but any time they don’t like the way that you’re playing or you’re catching up or that you’re doing something to be self-sufficient, they burn your game, burn your cars and burn your Monopoly money.
"At this point the only way you’re going to catch up in the game is if the person shares the wealth and now what if every time they share the wealth, there’s psychological warfare against you to say, 'Oh, you’re an equal opportunity hire'.
“How can you win? You can’t win, the game is fixed! So when they say ‘why did you burn down your own neighbourhood? Why did you burn down the community? It’s not ours! We don’t own anything!"
Jones then added: "Trevor Noah said it so beautifully that there is a social contract that we all have where if you steal or I steal, the person of authority comes in and they fix the situation.
"But the person who fixes the situation is killing us so the social contract is broken and if the social contract is broken why the f**k do I give a s**t about burning a football hall of fame or burning a Target?"
She finished by saying that people are lucky that all black people are simply looking for equality and not revenge:
"You broke the contract when you killed us in the streets and didn’t give a f**k.
"You broke the contract when we played your game for 400 years and built your wealth.
"You broke the contract when we built our wealth again, with our boot straps, and you destroyed it.
"So f**k your Target, f**k your hall of fame, as far as I’m concerned they could burn all of this to the ground and it still wouldn’t be enough.
"And they are lucky that all black people are looking for is equality and not revenge."
Ms Jones' incredible speech has been widely circulated on social media, with TV personality Jameela Jamil saying: "You will never, ever... hear a better explanation of what is happening in the world right now"
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