A roundup of my latest thoughts about the George Floyd protests and Black Lives Matter movement:
- I don’t want to tell anyone how to express themselves but please don’t post black tiles on social media platforms to show your support for the Black Lives Matter Movement. These posts are flooding key hashtags that are needed to convey important information about the movement undoing years of hard work. It’s great that you want to become an ally and share your support but there are more meaningful ways to do that.
- Such as voting! Protesting is great but we need to keep this momentum going in November!
- Okay, I lied. I will tell people how to express themselves. Don’t be like those social media influencers who roll up on a cleanup project or protest and pose in front of the destruction or crowds for a completely out of touch Donald Trump style photo op. Either show up to help or stay out of the way. Don’t make this all about you.
- Speaking of social media I have to give props to those who are standing up and fighting back. Props to Twitter for finally fact checking Donald Trump’s posts and to Snapchat for refusing to share his content any longer (even if both moves were long overdue). And even if Facebook won’t join them its nice to see Facebook employees standing up to Mark Zuckerberg with waves of resignation letters flooding in. A bold move during a pandemic where 40 million people are already unemployed. Now I know it’s a fine line and we don’t want to impinge on Freedom of Speech but I would like to see some of these social media platforms go a step further and completely ban users who post hate speech or content that could incite violence. In particular, I would like to see TikTok ban users participating in the disturbing George Floyd challenge.
- Speaking of Freedom of Speech it’s outrageous that the police have been specifically targeting members of the press during the protests, most likely because of Trumps’ years long rhetoric about the media being the true enemy of the people. Freedom of the Press must be protected so that we can have a free and open democracy. And to echo the sentiments of climate activist Greta Thunberg it would be nice if democratic world leaders from around the globe condemned the attacks on the American people and the press.
- Despite everything else going on we can’t lose sight of the pandemic. I know that the George Floyd murder demanded immediate action but this is a horrible time to be out on the streets en masse. If you do go out please wear a mask, use hand sanitizer, and try to social distance as much as possible. And if you don’t feel well don’t go out at all. Conversely the police have to change their tactics too with the pandemic in mind. You can’t be using tear gas, stealing water bottles, medical supplies, and masks, or holding large groups of people in overcrowded cells. The pandemic must be top of mind for both sides.
- Speaking of which, can we ban the use of tear gas to break up protests? If it’s banned in warfare why is it still allowed to be used against our own citizens?!
- We also can’t lose sight of the root cause of this unrest: systemic racism, police brutality, and the over-militarization of police forces. Let’s pass legislation, change policies and procedures, cut budgets and re-purpose those funds towards education, and most importantly, hold bad actors accountable immediately. Every single time a video comes out of police acting violently during these protests whether they are attacking reporters, shooting peaceful protesters with rubber bullets, or taking other extreme measures designed for crowd control there needs to be immediate investigations and firings. Let’s not slow play this. Let’s just rip the band-aid off in one fell swoop.
- And let’s not have any more double standards. The protesters in Michigan who brought assault rifles into a state courthouse should have been arrested. That was absolutely ridiculous. And all the people protesting their right to get a haircut were out of control and yet no curfew was ever instituted. Let’s level the playing field and start sending the right message.
- I’m absolutely loving the moves made by the Mayor of DC to make lasting change such as renaming one of the streets near the White House Black Lives Matter Plaza and painting Black Lives Matter on the street directly leading to the White House. Both of those moves are powerful statements.
- And I’m absolutely hating the moves made by New York City such as suspending Habeas Corpus and instituting curfews that make life difficult for essential workers who need to get around the city. If curfews are to be instituted these should be instituted to curb the pandemic. Not to break up peaceful protests.
- In the early moments of the protests Trump tried to label Antifa as a terrorist organization despite the fact that it’s not an organization at all and has no mechanism for membership. Antifa stands for Anti-Fascist. Technically, everyone who fought in World War II is Antifa. Technically, every American should want to be now as well. In theory, Antifa are the good guys.
- While we’re at it, while we’re standing up to oppression and trying to change the culture in America can we do away with every fascist thing this entire administration has ever done. Starting with freeing all those kids in cages.
- An interesting idea I heard today was the idea of having civilian oversight of police forces. Such as crowd sourcing the review of body cam footage, creating jobs in the process.
- We need to do a better job of being proactive, not reactive. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell finally came out today and said that the NFL was wrong and should have listened to its players sooner. If they had maybe things would have played out differently. At the very least Colin Kaepernick would still have a job.
We have a lot more work to do.
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