I'm a Target shareholder, and we thoroughly deserved the looting of our store on Lake Street in Minneapolis.
There is a history of injustice in that store and neighborhood- In 1862 our government having driven Native Americans off of productive land failed to provide the promised food and other necessary supplies, leaving them no choice but to rebel. The rebellion was put down by our military, 38 Natives who never got a fair trial were murdered in a mass hanging, and the surviving women, children, and elders were imprisoned at Fort Snelling just down the road.
Our Target store is built on the site of the historic Minneapolis-Moline factory where union workers built tractors for decades- Until White Motor bought the company, shut down the plant, and stole their pensions.
Target took advantage of this devalued site and plopped down what is probably our most profitable store there. For decades Target used it's dominance of the neighborhood's economy to depress wages and inflate prices. We were aided in that exploitation by the City of Minneapolis that gave us unjustified subsidies and kept competitors away
for decades.
Today, a couple months into a pandemic, the working class neighborhood around our Target is hurting. While rents are inflated and continuing to rise, many of the neighborhood's workers are unemployed and ineligible or still waiting for unemployment and other economic aid. So no surprise that as soon as the glass front doors of that Target were broken open, a few desperate citizens put aside their usual law abiding habits and grabbed some necessities they couldn’t afford.
Target will survive- We've got billions in assets and the loss of some of the inventory that we paid peanuts for to start with is a rounding error in our financial statements. Instead of beefing up security and scanning security video for not even misdemeanor level "looters", Target needs to become an asset for the community by paying living wages and charging only reasonable prices.
And the "precious" inventory of that Target? Give it all away, and more from the warehouse that's just a few miles away!