By Malya Robenson
The Civil Rights movement was one of the most critical parts of American history. In many ways, it was a demonstration of America’s core values of liberty and justice to the rest of the world. Those who took part fought their hardest to ensure that future generations of Americans would have equal opportunities in the United States regardless of the color of their skin. And yet, despite their heroic efforts, people of color are still facing oppressive prejudice in America, especially from the police.
The United States has a rich history of brutalizing those who express dissatisfaction with social and political norms, particularly when they are minorities.
When it comes to law enforcement, the near entirety of the Civil Rights movement is categorized by overwhelming arrests and violence at the hands of the police. However, the militarization of the police goes even deeper.
Slave patrols, credited as being the basis of America’s current police force, consisted of groups of men with weapons who would patrol areas with large slave populations and enforce legislation such as fugitive slave laws and other practices meant to keep slaves in line.
Even when the police aren’t militarized, they still go out of their way to target and persecute black people. There are countless instances of police officers in America assaulting and murdering black people with little or no consequences, even when these instances are caught on camera.
However, America’s tolerance of police brutality seemed to come to a head when the entire nation watched a police officer kneel on George Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and forty-six seconds, crushing him to the pavement as he cried out for his mother and told them he couldn’t breathe, killing him before our very eyes.
Almost immediately, the entire nation was outraged. Within days, protests of tens of thousands erupted not only in America, but around the world to demand reform in police departments across the United States.
At the same time, there were calls for the revamping of different companies and entire industries, and insistence that they be more inclusive or that they stop certain practices that have long been viewed as racist.
One example is the renaming of the Aunt Jemima pancake brand, the logo, and name perpetuating the dated “mammy” caricature of black women from the 1800s when they were caretakers and cooks for white children, especially in the South.
There has been an onslaught of moves like this, from Band-aid’s development of bandages of multiple skin tones, to several white actors who have decided to step down from their roles as black animated characters, to heads of companies vowing to take steps to ensure that their companies’ work forces are more diverse in the future. These moves are undoubtedly important, as they are small steps toward a more accepting future.
However, there are several problems with this. For one thing, these are largely paltry gestures that will presently do very little to enact real, impactful, and lasting change in America. As brilliant minister and activist Malcom X once said, “The white man will try to satisfy us with symbolic victories rather than economic equity and justice.” Currently, his words are ringing painfully true as very little real change is being done.
Arguably, the more important issue with these gestures is that they have drawn public focus away from the ongoing protests.
Calls for change came directly after George Floyd’s murder, sharing media space with the protests but now that these small conciliatory moves have tapered off, reports on the protests have dwindled as well. Coverage of the protests has undoubtedly been to a lesser degree than it had been when they peaked around the beginning of June, despite the fact that they are still going strong. This is especially problematic considering that people have been confined to their homes and are unable to see what has been going on for themselves.
The only reason that there has been some level of renewed coverage of these protests is because of the presence of federal agents in Portland, Oregon.
These agents have been using excessive force in an attempt to quell the protests. They have even gone so far as to kidnap protesters in unmarked vehicles with no explanation since at least the 14th of July. Portland’s mayor has demanded that President Trump remove all federal troops across the city, and Oregon’s Attorney General fears that Portland has been serving as Trump’s “test case” and that he will soon be deploying similar troops to other cities with similar protests.
The President has already ordered troops to be sent to Chicago and Kansas City with even more cities to be named in the coming weeks.
The mayors of Chicago, Seattle, Portland, Albuquerque, Washington D.C., and Kansas City have since written to Congress to ask that its members prevent the president from sending more federal agents to cities.
While the situation is being remedied, as it was confirmed by Oregon Governor Kate Brown on July 29th that the federal agents would be removed from Portland, it is still incredibly important that this incident not be swept under the rug.
This was an egregious abuse of power on behalf of the president, and it seems as if no one is talking about it. This is likely because of how little media outlets are talking about it in relation to everything else going on in the world.
The change in the atmosphere on social media has been palpable. Most Americans are once again falling into the same cycle that always follows a tragedy: the incident occurs, people are outraged, they demand change, things are debated for a brief period, and then, concern dwindles as quickly as it had formed.
This is a failure on all of society, and it seems no one is completely immune to it. It is the media’s responsibility to keep the people informed about these affairs, but it is also the responsibility of the people to try to inform themselves as best they can and to keep their focus on social issues for longer than a few weeks at a time.
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