Why is This Moment Different, and What Will Change?

Everyone feels it. This one is different. 

Maybe we’re extra focused because we’ve all been stewing inside our homes since March, with nowhere to go, nothing to do, and nothing to watch.

Maybe it’s because this was set against the backdrop of Amy Cooper weaponizing her privilege and recognizing what it means to threaten a Black man with a 911 call. 

Maybe it’s because that backdrop also included the lost lives of Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery.

Maybe it was the casual way George Floyd’s murderer had his hand in his pocket as he slowly and apathetically stole a man’s life, while said man, along with a crowd of spectators, begged for mercy. 

Maybe it’s all of those things. 

Whatever the reason is, this moment is different than the other similar, tragic moments we’ve had in our storied history of cops senselessly killing Black people. 

But will it lead to actual change?

Sandy Hook was supposed to be a line in the sand. 20 dead schoolchildren were gonna lead us into a new era of gun reform. Until they didn’t.

Kids in cages were supposed to be a line in the sand. Until they weren’t. 

Those stories sparked national outrage for a few weeks, and people moved on. 

And while the latter story intersects with race, and how our culture views people considered to be “others,” America has always saved a special kind of racism for Black people. 

Asian Americans are currently under attack due to misinformation about coronavirus.

Hispanic Americans have been under more attack than usual, as immigrants from Mexico and South American countries have become demonized and scapegoated to a higher degree in recent years.

Middle Eastern Americans are specifically targeted anytime a terrorist attack occurs.

But Black Americans are always under attack, both overtly and covertly, every single day in America. Brought up in a system specifically designed to hold them down, intimidate them, and limit their opportunities. It’s baked into our political, economic, and social structures.

So what changes now? Where do you begin the necessary process of deconstructing what is quintessentially American? 

Where do you begin? And who starts that process? It shouldn’t be on Black people to save themselves. While they’re still the overwhelming makeup of protestors, they shouldn’t be. 

Black people know their lives matter. Who, exactly needs to be convinced of that? Who’s reserving judgement on that basic human principle until they’ve seen a little more? Black lives matter. And they shouldn’t have to hold up signs stating that fact, any more than a 2nd grader should have to hold up a sign saying “Don’t shoot me.”

Black people didn’t create the system they’re currently, and have been historically, living in and suffering from. They shouldn’t be asked to fix it.

Just as women needed men to stand side by side with them during the Suffrage movement, and will continue to need men to speak out against sexism - just as the LGBTQ community needs cisgender, straight people to lock arms with them - Black people need other ethnicities - namely white people - to fight this fight alongside them, if not carry the bulk of the burden on their behalf. 

It’s not that Black people are incapable of handling the situation - it’s that they shouldn’t be asked to. They didn’t create the problem. They’re locked into a system that stacks the odds against them, disproportionately arrests, jails, or kills them, and they need the people who thrive and benefit from such a system, to make some real moves.

As painful and as tragic as George Floyd’s story was, it’s far from an uncommon one, and it won’t be the last one like that told. This will continue to happen. There’s already stories coming out of these protests that confirm that fact. 

Just as more people died from gun violence after Sandy Hook, and the children in cages remain caged.

I don’t have the answers. I don’t know where this moment will take us, or how we achieve real, systemic change.

Donating to the family of George Floyd is a start.

Donating to the family of Ahmaud Arbery is a start.

Donating to Campaign Zero is a start.

Donating to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund is a start.

Texting ‘JUSTICE’ to 668366 or ‘FLOYD’ to 55156 is a start.

But those things help monetarily, not systemically. 

Social media campaigns help raise awareness, but we need more than hashtags at this point.

So again I ask - what’s gonna change?