海角大神

If you鈥檙e a home cook then you鈥檝e probably heard of Penzeys Spices.聽

Bill Penzey launched the company in the late 1980s in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, as a mail-order operation. Mr. Penzey, an activist capitalist, peppered his early catalogs with his politics and never stopped letting people know where he stood.

As befits a culinary alchemist, he鈥檚 for science. He鈥檚 against the use of Native American iconography in sports.

Now he鈥檚 stirring himself into the debate over what constitutes a collateral cost of righteous protest and what鈥檚 just wanton destruction. After the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Mr. Penzey again grew vocal about racial injustice and the need to fight it.聽

Penzeys has a store in Kenosha. Someone wrote Mr. Penzey to ask if he鈥檇 feel differently if his store were being damaged in the unrest.聽

His Minneapolis store had its windows broken after George Floyd鈥檚 killing in May. Penzeys responded with a sweep-up and a 鈥渉ope mural鈥� on the plywood that replaced them. But Mr. Penzey didn鈥檛 cite that bit of history. He thought the question through, .

鈥淲hat if we looted our own store?鈥� he said he asked his team. Snapshot its inventory; earmark it for dispersal to food pantries and 鈥渙rganizations trying to raise money to fund change.鈥� He鈥檚 now asking his customers where the products should go.

鈥淗uman life means everything,鈥� Mr. Penzey wrote, 鈥渟tuff, not so much.鈥�