"Echoing Lincoln: could it be that all the burnt buildings, all the destroyed buildings are divine justice, a mere drop in the bucket of expiation for the robbing of black Americans of their economic justice? The stolen wages of slavery and sharecropping, the redlining and higher mortgage rates for would be black homeowners? The denial of GI penefits, jobs and pensions?"

Sounds plausible in the abstract until you realize that many of the businesses destroyed were the only sources of food, medicine, and other services available to the poor and disenfranchised people in that neighborhood. Remember the outrage over lack of COVID testing services available to people in poor neighborhoods? I'm pretty sure that I heard that at least one of the vandalized CVS sites had been planning to roll out COVID testing within the coming week. That's not going to happen now.

The local authorities have been trying to draw a clear distinction between "protesters" and "rioters." Not everyone is buying it, but I think it is the right distinction to make. Some people are out there trying to make a statement. Others are clearly just there to destroy things or to grab stuff for themselves. There are border cases. Burning the police precinct station, while not something I actually condone, at least makes a clear political statement. There is no ideological justification for looting a pharmacy or liquor store.