Lululemon and the riot ideology

The trendy retailer Lululemon shocked many recently when it fired, without severance, two employees for trying to stop the store from being robbed. When asked about the firing later, the CEO of the company showed no remorse about the firing or sympathy for the now unemployed workers. He referred to a “zero tolerance policy” against engaging with robbers and said of the pilfered inventory, “it’s only merchandise.” But of course, it’s not only merchandise. It’s property and it’s not his property, it’s the property of the shareholders. He is supposed to be a steward of that property on their behalf.

According to a report from the New York Post, these same suspects were alleged to have robbed the store a dozen times before. A policy forbidding employees from attempting to stop a crime or engage robbers may be well advised and proper, but the former employees also claim that they were discouraged from calling the police. Further, the employees do not seem to have physically engaged the suspects, but rather verbally objected and followed them to the door as they fled the scene. Apparently, company policy is for employees to stand mute while the store is robbed a baker’s dozen times … or else.

I asked the CEO of Lululemon about the incident at the company’s recent shareholder meeting. What exactly is the retailer’s policy on looting (a question one would think need not be asked)? In his answer he referenced a “zero tolerance” policy for looting, which was somewhat encouraging. But it bears at least asking why the emphasis on zero tolerance for looting at a shareholder meeting, but an emphasis on zero tolerance for stopping looting in talking to a liberal cable host?

I also asked a follow-up question about the company’s pledge of support for BLM (according to a recent report from the Claremont Institute). The moderator of the meeting edited my question so as to take out the reference to BLM’s relationship with looting, and the CEO responded by simply reiterating the language about a zero-tolerance policy towards theft and longstanding relationships with law enforcement. Not a word about BLM.

I sent an email following up and no response has been forthcoming. One wonders what relationship with law enforcement he referred to. Some BLM leaders have spoken out in favor of looting and BLM protests often mutated into riotous looting sprees. And for this, a retailer gives them $300,000 of shareholder money? In addition, according to Glitter Magazine, the company made a donation to Reclaim the Block, which calls for diverting money away from police towards social spending and openly declares that engaging with police does not work.

It appears that the company has fallen prey to “the riot ideology,” a phrase coined in the 1960s when rioting in urban areas was used to pry federal funding out of the hands of taxpayers and drop it into the hands of urban social engineers. Fred Siegel, writing for the conservative Manhattan Institute, brought the phrase back into usage after the more recent riots and associated criminality. Originally, it was the belief that riots were the fault of the system rather than the thugs, and that the only proper response was reparations via social spending. The late novelist Tom Wolfe referred to it as “mau-mauing the flak catchers.”

The newer version eschews public order altogether, presenting police as an occupying army that should withdraw, not reform. Of course, the shakedown is still part of it. What’s surprising is that a business that depends entirely on the suppression of larceny would buy into such an ideology. But then again, it’s only merchandise and, more to the point, it’s somebody else’s merchandise at that. And of course, we are not just talking about merchandise. We are talking about public order.

The last time the riot ideology reigned supreme, it was eventually dethroned by the broken windows hypothesis. This refers to the observation that minor public disorder such as fare-jumping the subway or breaking the windows of an abandoned factory sends the message “this is unguarded space.” No one is harmed more by that ideology than the poor and working class. It’s a shame that two employees, now unemployed, could see that so much more clearly than the CEO of the company.