As you continue to have discussions among friends, family, and colleagues surrounding recent events, please don't promote the overly simplistic narrative that the ongoing protests and outrage are solely about George Floyd.
Obviously, we're enraged about George Floyd. But, this is also about an endless list of George Floyd's that is embedded in the combined life experiences of generations of black people in the U.S. This is about generational trauma.
Read about Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tamir Rice, Dante Parker, Ezell Ford, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, and Rodney King. Read about the Department of Justice's inquiry into the Ferguson police department. If you're still not convinced, there are more receipts.
Once you acknowledge the history, then it's much harder to equate the idea of justice to one or even several convictions of those involved. Justice won't be served until we see systemic reforms that swiftly punish those who abuse their power. That's the end game.
Well, at least that's the justice part of the end game. We must also continue to grapple with the ideal of liberty and the ways that liberty is systematically infringed upon by biased laws and law enforcement practices.
Discussions on social media play an important role in this process and it's truly been comforting to see and hear from so many vocal allies. However, the real work occurs when far fewer people, or no one at all, is looking.
I'm hopeful that we'll start to see the fruits of these efforts soon.
