What are the economic consequences of race-related rioting?

This appeared in The Millennial Source

In late May, after Black Lives Matter protests first took place in response to the police killing of George Floyd, violence and rioting broke out in Floyd’s hometown of Minneapolis and elsewhere. Coverage of the unrest framed the violence as either a perversion of the protests or an unrelated offshoot, likely caused by outside agitators.

Critics of the protestors have latched onto the rioting and looting to argue that the protests and the resulting violence are more harmful to the black community than police brutality.

In terms of the resulting insurance claims, it’s true that destructive rioting can have a costly impact. Yet the media attention that those actions have brought to the protests may ultimately have helped the cause, not hurt it.

The impact of rioting

The rioting has often overshadowed the protests, even as the source cause of the violence that has occurred in cities throughout the United States cannot be conclusively determined.

On May 28, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz called in the US National Guard in an effort to quell the violence, while still seeking to acknowledge the validity of the protests.