Rich kid ‘rioters’ are ignorant about the poor working class
Across the country, pampered children of the overclass are taking part in the vandalization, looting and burning of businesses, many of which are owned by immigrants and members of minority groups, under the guise of championing the Black Lives Matter movement. In the 1960s, Malcolm X characterized white liberals as “the most dangerous thing in the entire Western Hemisphere,” and now we are seeing why.
Consider the case of Clara Kraebber, who faces felony rioting charges after a recent alleged window-smashing spree that police say caused at least $100,000 in damage. The Post reported that Kraebber is a wealthy Upper East Sider whose mother is an architect and whose father is a psychiatrist. She was allegedly joined in the rioting by Frank Fuhrmeister of Stuyvesant Heights, a freelance art director who has designed ads for Joe Coffee and has also worked for Pepsi, Samsung and Glenlivet, among other high-profile brands. Another accused rioter is Adi Sragovich, an accomplished musician and student at $57,000-a-year Sarah Lawrence College who grew up in the super-tony enclave of Great Neck, NY. Claire Severine, a former jet-setting model, was also arrested.
These affluent white rioters are attempting to hijack the BLM movement, promoting mayhem to impress their friends. Meanwhile, they will face a fraction of the chaos and violence suffered by downtrodden Americans — if they pay any price at all.
These privileged people hold luxury beliefs, which are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class, while inflicting costs on the lower classes. Rich rioters burn businesses to the ground and cause chaos in the streets to increase their social status among their equally affluent peers, all the while claiming to fight for the underprivileged. In her 2018 book “Political Tribes,” Yale Law professor Amy Chua quotes a student from rural South Carolina: “I think protesting is almost a status symbol for elites. That’s why they always post pictures on Facebook, so all their friends know they’re protesting. We don’t like being used as a prop for someone else’s self-validation.”
Privileged protesters are keenly aware of how many “likes” they’ll get if they post a photo with the right hashtags next to a burning building. Never mind that the building housed a pharmacy, and now elderly members of that community no longer have access to life-sustaining medication. These senior citizens aren’t even props for privileged protesters — they’re nonentities.
The heirs of the overclass have little understanding of the policies for which they advocate, such as the infamous call to abolish the police. Only those who have never been victimized by violence could promote such a policy. These rich radicals despise police officers, many of whom are the same age as them but are far more likely to be non-white and come from working-class backgrounds. The Rev. Al Sharpton rebukedthese rich radicals on Tuesday when he said, “To take all policing off is something that I think a latte liberal may go for as they sit around the Hamptons discussing this as some academic problem.”
And indeed, in July, wealthy families hired private security guards for protection while they summered in the Hamptons.
Rich rioters are cultivating dangerous environments where violence can fester. Compared to Americans who earn more than $75,000 a year, the poorest Americans are seven times more likely to be victims of robbery, seven times more likely to be victims of aggravated assault, and twenty times more likely to be victims of sexual assault, according to the US Department of Justice. Rich rioters must be ignorant of such realities. Or maybe they hope the poor will become even more victimized than they already are.
Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson), who served in the Air Force, is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Cambridge.
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