What about the Black Lives Matter movement and the effect of fatigue that happens around the news? You know what I mean, don’t you.
What? You need an example?
What happened regarding the news before COVID-19 that was about…
You know, I seriously can not remember what was in the news the days before COVID-19 hit. Can you? The impeachment was overthrown by Mitch McConnell in the Senate. Remember that news? Before that, there were children in cages. Do you remember that our government separated children from their families and put them into metal cages with concrete floors? And before that, our government denied aid to Puerto Ricans, aid that would have been given to any other Americans. Remember the lack of aid to Puerto Rico? Those were different days, another era. We’ve moved on. We’re post-COVID-19 now.
As much as we would want it, COVID-19 won’t stand to be ignored for long. We can try to ignore it, but it keeps killing people in the thousands. Every day, a few thousand people in the world die of it. So, it keeps returning to the news although I can even feel a resistance to more of that information. If you had told me in March that every single day, more people would die in the world than the number that died on 911, I would have told you it would be catastrophic headline news. Now, it’s the norm, repetitive.
But what about the Black Lives Matter movement? After three and a half weeks, protests are still going on, but the news about them has decreased despite new cases of police brutality and even lynchings. The news seems to have reverted to political gaffes in the White House and the effects of the virus on states that reopened.
I get that news has to roll with current events, but what will happen to all that important momentum regarding change against institutional racism?
I feel it in my own gut. I feel myself moving on to other events. My own news cycle is shifting.
Yet I don’t want to lose this momentum. It’s an opportunity for real change in our country. Yesterday, the Supreme Court ruled that LGBTQ people could not be fired based on their gender or sexual orientation.
Is that viewed by people of color as a win in the name of intersectionality?
I believe so but I’m not ready to let go of the problems of police brutality. I’m just not. The work has only begun. I can’t stop now, can I?
It’s just like that sense, two weeks after any New Year’s eve, when I realize that wonderful resolution I made is slipping out of my consciousness. Eighty percent of all New Year’s resolutions fail. I don’t want to let the changes that the Black Lives Matter protests initiated fall flat at my feet. And I know that I’m not the only person who feels the fatigue that I’m feeling. I’m sure there’s a psychological term for unintentionally letting go of a good resolution over time. The term I should put on this is white privilege. Bodie Thoene said that apathy is the glove in which evil slips its hand. There it is. Turning away from this problem of racism in the United States after three and a half exhausting weeks of protests and riots and renewed police brutality is a racist act in itself. So is forgetting the children in the cages and the maltreatment of people in Puerto Rico. My outrage is tired.
Oh no, I am that person.
I don’t want to be that person. I want people to be treated with humanity, respect, and care. My spotlight needs to stay on the fact that black lives matter.
Why is that so important?
My own humanity depends on it. Does yours?
Thank you for listening, jules