You Say You Want a Revolution?
By: Joseph Connelly
Tags: Election 2020, George Floyd, Donald Trump, Racism, Revolution

Be careful what you wish for.

What has happened in the United States since Police Officer Take-a-Knee and his Three Stooges murdered George Floyd a week ago is not only sad, it is sadly too easy to connect the dots as to how we got from there to here. The kindling of this particular bonfire had been accumulating for a very long time. It’s not just about one civilian death in Minneapolis, as we have quickly come to realize.

• It’s about deep-rooted and systemic racism.

• It’s about gross and growing income inequality.

• It’s about the militaristic wanna-be dictator in the White House.

• It’s about our polarized political situation.

• It’s about the Coronavirus pandemic — people under virtual house arrest for months, feeling as if they are losing their “freedom,” and not knowing who or what to believe.

• It’s about social media and how terrible it often is, where anyone can say anything with little or no repercussions.

• It’s about the collective stress we are feeling regarding the (hopefully) upcoming national election, still five long months away.

• It’s about hopelessness.

Add it all up and it’s a recipe for revolution.

The rioting and looting sucks. Agreed. As does police brutality. The lesson for America — and its current lack of leadership — doesn’t stop with the arrest of ONE bad cop after the unfortunate and totally unnecessary suffocation of an unarmed, handcuffed Black man. George Floyd’s murder was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s imperative to see through the smoke and understand what the protestors are actually protesting. “A riot is the language of the unheard.” — MLK, Jr.

My very first ever college class was Sociology. The prof must have been better than I gave him credit for at the time — it was an 8 a.m. session — as more than four decades later I can distinctly recall several of his lectures. The vast majority of the knowledge one acquires throughout life accumulates via “educational osmosis” in that you have no recollection of how, where, or even why any particular “lesson” sticks with you instead of quickly exiting out your other ear. It’s rare to remember when or where we learned what we know.

I can’t even recall my instructor’s name, but I do remember his lesson about social unrest. If I could locate my notes from all those years ago, they might look something like:

[1] The vast majority of people in the United States are complacent;

[2] A necessary ingredient for change is hopelessness;

[3] Violence erupts far more frequently during hot weather.

Glance at the calendar then read that recipe again from the perspective of 2020.

[1] Complacency The most telltale ingredient of “Revolution Stew” is voter turnout. Prof. Forgot-His-Name showed us that when citizens stay home on Election Day, when and where they are freely able to vote, it’s because for the most part “things” are good — i.e. they aren’t looking for “change.” They are content. Make my latté venti, thank you very much, almond milk no whipped cream. Damn, even almond milk is bad now?

All governments know that we minions can usually be distracted with complacency, whether that complacency is real or imagined. Tiger King? Consequently, governments also understand that when life isn’t going so well, voter turnout increases. I believe most citizens also know, even if only on a sub-cellular level, that we are constantly being duped and distracted; that something too often smells just a little bit “off.” So perpetually brewing underneath that “Planned Complacency,” that endless bombardment of meaningless distraction and deflection, is an active volcano that can erupt at any time. This is what we have witnessed in the past week. If our national election was today, the first Tuesday of June, rather than the first Tuesday of November, I suspect voter turnout would be at historic levels, even with the pandemic.

Republicans know all of this so they do everything they can to suppress voters and voting. Sorry, my Republican friends, but it is true. Voter IDs. Hanging chads. Gerrymandering. Citizens United. Being OK with electronic voting but not voting-by-mail! Still don’t understand how anyone can think it’s easier to “hack” into a paper trail than a computer program. But that’s just me. Conservatives more so than Liberals treat the entire “one person, one vote” (cough cough wink wink) process as if it’s a tag-team professional wrestling match: distract over here; suppress over there.

There’s a reason for all of this, of course.

[2] Change The flip side of complacency is hopelessness. Hope and change. Politicians (most, anyway) master the “art of the positive” even while proposing change. There are exceptions. Arguably the most significant factor that led to Donald Trump’s election in 2016 (not counting the inane Electoral College) was his ability to tap into the hopelessness — non-complacency — of a certain segment of the electorate who were in real pain and desired change, though regrettably in the form of back(lash) to the future.

Fear is the sibling of hopelessness. After eight years of a very effective and popular half-Black president, a large enough segment of the proportionally decreasing White populace feared that “their America” (which of course never really existed; or if it did, only for them) was “changing.” They reacted by supporting a wholly unqualified rube who pretended to be “one of them.” Like begets like. MAGA. Meanwhile, the complacent, feeling good about the eight previous years… see above. [Yes, I know Hillary Clinton received more votes. The Electoral College must go.]

It is easy to draw a straight line from 401 years of racial oppression to George Floyd. It is equally as easy to see the other ingredients needed for Revolution Stew to boil over.

Any resemblance is purely intentional.

[3] Heat As the calendar reaches June and the days get longer, it would be no surprise to any sociologist that the violence, looting, arson, and anger of the last six days occurred on the eve of summer. The dates July 4, 1776 and July 14, 1789 are embedded in most peoples’ memories. We should be relieved that the video documentation of George Floyd’s murder happened in a northern state on May 25 rather than in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, or New York on July 25. Had it been captured in any of the latter, we might be in the throes of Revolutionary War 2.0 right now.

* * *

How we ended up here isn’t difficult to understand. But why? Why, in the resounding words of Rodney King, the first Black man to be filmed on the wrong end of police brutality, “can’t we all get along?”

The ultimate answer is greed and selfishness. Racism, while a large problem, is more symptom than disease.

George Floyd allegedly committed the crime of purchasing cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill, an offense that in 2020 carries a death sentence. In the wealthiest country in history, we don’t cut off your hand; we cut off your air supply. In the week since, we’ve witnessed the symbolism of actual looting, which few of us endorse but which also shouldn’t be lost. Replaceable property doesn’t trump irreplaceable lives regardless of who is president.

There is no real good way to end this essay. While writing it I saw this article posted by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Since I am a privileged White person and the former NBA star is Black, I can’t begin to pretend to understand his and all other PoCs’ experience. All I can do is empathize. Please read his article.

“Racism in America is like dust in the air. It seems invisible — even if you’re choking on it — until you let the sun in. Then you see it’s everywhere.”

— Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Stay involved. Exercise. Talk to people. Read. Simplify your life. Be kind. Demonstrate. Work for justice. Write. Remain positive. Hold politicians accountable. Don’t be silent.

If you agree, please forward this articles to others. Thank you. Stay healthy and safe.