Will the Protests Succeed?
I wrote most of this in response to Ian Greenfield’s post on June 2, 2020
We may be at a tipping point now. For that we have Trump and all his followers to thank. They have militarized and emboldened the police. They encouraged the use of excdssive force, especially on minority and immigrand communities. They did this intentionally. Their America is not for those people. But now, Trump’s brand of racism is too blatant, so mean, and constant, that it has finally become unacceptable to the people who were never really exposed to it. They knew it was somewhere, but it wasn’t in their lives. Now it is.
In addition, many White people are getting a tiny taste of what Black people have lived with for centuries. The virus has made that clear. The very rich have the money, and they own this administration. Millions of White people have lost their jobs in March, April and May, and yet the bailout money went to the big corporations and Trump’s friends.
White people don’t have healthcare. White people are on line for food banks. White people went to college, have big debts, and don’t have a steady job. White people worry about the destruction of our climate. And mostly, many White people don’t feel they will be included in America’s future, except to be exploited, in rotten jobs, by the very rich. That is what, as you noticed, Black people have been expected to do for centuries.
Many White people are good, caring people. They realize that what they are experiencing is just a tiny bit of what Black people have always lived with. Injustice is injustice. Racism is bad, it damaged our country from the beginning. It gave us Trump in reaction to Obama. Trump may really be responsible for making America great, for the first time.
George Floyd may go down in history as one of America’s greatest agents of change.
Ironies abound.
We shall see if the people who are now marching, and lying down for nine minutes in protest, can bring about real change. Do they have the political skills, strength, and perseverance to overcome the racist, corrupt, but well financed cabal of Trump, Barr, Miller and McConnell?
There are many dangers facing everyone, especially American democracy, during the next five months.
