Quote:
Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan
In 2017, the Women's March and #metoo revolutionized a lot of people. Relatives that never really gave a shit started meeting with strangers in small coffee shops and in front of senator's offices to take action. They became voter registrars and knocked on doors in 2018 Women took online ranting to actual action and started running for office. I knew personally more people running for office in 2018 than in any other election in memory. All women, most won. . It happened all over the country. It's still going. The 2018 midterms sprang from a lot of things, but women organizing in a quiet way had a huge impact on that.
The events of the last two weeks were even greater than the Women's March. Places that I NEVER thought would give a shit about racism stood up. Fucking Vidor, Texas had more than 100 people show up. What the fuck? And has been sustained over a long period. Part of it, I think, has to do with the racist bullshit coming out of the White House from day one, starting with the immigration ban and pretty much every day since. Part of it has to do with the fact that parts of this country have done the adult equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling "I DON'T HEAR YOU" when the issue of police brutality against African Amercians has been brought up. Kapernick's treatment is a particularly egregious example of this, but it's not the only one. Part of it is that this particular murder was pretty horrific and can't really be excused away, especially given the video, though I'm sure they'll try. It's certainly the first time I've seen someone slowly and deliberately killed in real life. A lot of it has to do with the rage and frustration and helplessness people feel about the pandemic.
The police didn't do themselves any favors in the early days of the protests by reacting so violently. Especially when they did jack shit with those armed assholes that were protesting fucking haircuts and bars.
I see this as a mobilizing point. Whether or not the general public forgets isn't as important as planting the seeds of organization. Is it in time for the 2020? I think so, given the sheer number of people who have been radicalized in some way. There are groups forming all over the country, even in places that were improbable before the pandemic started. It's impossible right now to get books like White Fragility on Amazon because so many people are reading them right now. My white (for Houston) yoga studio is hosting a book club starting this week starting with Heavy: An American Memoir, also impossible to get in tangible form right now. Sorority members are calling out racism in their houses on Twitter. Authors are sharing the details of their book deals to shine light on disparities. There's a revolution happening in places like Conde Nast and Crossfit. Like #metoo, people are feeling comfortable coming forward publicly with shit they've been carrying privately for too long.
The problem of course, demonstrated so beautifully by the shitty situation in Georgia earlier this week, is the Republicans have done everything in their power to prevent people from voting. This in the middle of the pandemic when we really shouldn't be that close to each other.
So we'll see, but I think that this is a flashpoint. A lot of people in this country want to ignore as a one-time-thing like all of the other beatings and killings that we forget about and move on. I don't think so.
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I think #metoo succeeded because it had a laser-like focus: Exposing bad actors. That was easy in the age of social media.
BLM can do the same thing re: police. It could start singling out the bad depts and bad cops. That's probably good idea, actually.
But right now the message seems incoherent. "Defund the police" is also counterproductive. Too extreme.
The movement you see is real and at some point will put forth concise goals that go to the root of the problem: Laws designed to control the poor rather than protect them.
But from what I see at the moment, the immediate future looks a lot like Occupy. Everyone's recognizing a problem and agreeing we need to do something, but there's no consensus about what. And that opportunistic effort by Pelosi and Schumer to capitalize on the moment with legislation that bars chokeholds is just embarrassing. (Wearing that African garb also looked like pretty awful pandering, and to whom? These people being killed aren't African. They are Americans. They dress just like you and me. They are not an "other" except to racists.)
A much better legislative effort would have been to: (1) ban the sale of defense department military hardware to police; (2) repeal the laws on civil and criminal forfeiture which are used by police to steal from innocent minorities (and non-minorities) who can't afford to fight the forfeiture; and, (3) refuse federal funding to states deemed to be applying usurious and predatory fines and fees to criminals.
On #3, recall that Ferguson was using minorities, often forced to plead guilty to petty crimes as they couldn't afford cost of defense, as ATMs - charging them rates of interest and penalties for non-payment of nominal amounts that payday lenders wouldn't attempt. That's still going on all over the place, including very large cities in very blue states. The court system and police are effectively turning hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people into debt serfs for minor crimes, often long after they've served their sentences. It's nuts. Once you've done your time, you should be done. Period.
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