It’s been approximately three weeks since the protests have started in the United States in wake of the racially charged murder of George Floyd. Within these three weeks not only have we seen protests, we’ve experienced different actions that are a direct result of a mix of feelings. There has been the burning of properties (a police building), looting, rioting, statements put out by CEOs and board members of well-known companies rejecting racism, organizations terminating staff and anyone they’ve been affiliated with, who has been an oppressor (whether active or passive) of the Black Lives Matter Movement, and the list goes on.
This morning in speaking with my husband, he mentioned to me that the decision has been made to cancel Fox’s Cops, after it’s run for about 30 years. Some may applaud these efforts and the efforts of others who have used their privilege in these type of circumstances but to be quite honest I don’t know how I feel about it all. For someone to tell me that Cops is NOW being removed from the air after its premiere in 1989 makes me ask “so the show aired and lived through Rodney King, Abner Louima, Amadou Diallo, Eric Garner, and found nothing wrong with that? Why is it that there needs to be a casualty, a sacrificial lamb, in order for any injustice to be recognized? A mother has to lose their child, a husband has to lose his wife, and a child has to lose their parent before anything begins to be recognized.
What does standing with the Black Lives Matter movement mean to people? Is it just an opportunity to capitalize on the vulnerability of the public and the Black community? Do you really care about our lives? Will your actions be changed because of this and more importantly, will this change stretch beyond just this moment in history? Where will we be in a month from now? What about a year or a decade? How about a century?
We protest silently, we protest radically, we scream and shout and push for reform. We’re on the front line of the picket lines and we’re in the offices LITERALLY fighting for change. If we get the change, what will that change look like? How long will this change be for? Will this change be changed? I have so many questions racing through my mind at the same time and I can’t help but feel a rush of emotions: confusion, frustration, sadness, etc. As a Black woman who is a mother of two Black women, one of my greatest fears is that they will be at their computers in 20 years typing the same exact thing that I am, because we’ve failed to get ourselves out of this hamster wheel of social injustice and racism.
So what now? What do we do with our newfound education? What do they do with being “woke” and realizing that White privilege is a real thing? I’m not sure “what now” looks like, but it needs to look differently than it has these past decades.
