Uptown’s minority-owned businesses ask why looters came for them after Jacob Blake shooting: ‘They were destroying the neighborhoods that they want to protect’

KENOSHA, Wis.La Estrella Supermarket, the neighborhood grocery. Uptown Beauty, the mom-and-pop supply shop. Uptown Restaurant, the locally-owned eatery. They have stood side-by-side on 22nd Avenue for years, serving Kenoshas diverse Uptown neighborhood even as other storefronts closed or were lured toward high-traffic areas near the interstate.
The businessesthreatened in recent months by the coronavirus pandemictook a harsh blow in late August, as civil unrest swept Kenosha following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man left partially paralyzed by the encounter.
Daytime protesters challenged city officials during mostly peaceful gatherings, but at night angry crowds clashed with riot-gear-clad police armed with pepper spray and tear gas. Looting followed, then arson, beginning near the county courthouse downtown, then moving west to 22nd Avenue in Uptown, a low-income neighborhood.
Local business officials have already tallied at least 56 businesses that were damaged or destroyed by looting and fire in two of Kenoshas business districts: its downtown, where government buildings are located, and the Uptown neighborhood, where a main thoroughfare lined with businesses is surrounded by a residential neighborhood. City officials have said they believe the damage was largely the work of outsiders traveling into Kenosha. Damage is estimated at around at least $50 million.
The destruction has left shop owners in one of Kenoshas oldest business districts grappling with why their businesses became casualties of the destruction that has followed protests against racism and police brutality, and whether they will have the money to rebuild and stay in the neighborhood.