This, exactly: reducing the protests to 'haircuts' was deeply dishonest and suggests bad faith. What ppl wanted was to pray, to protest some other issue, to bury a loved one surrounded by family and friends, save their business and thus feed their kids, get cancer scans, etc etc.
That's an entirely separate question from whether the riots ended real momentum toward police reform, which I fear is the case--though they shouldn't and I hope they don't! If an epidemiologist says 'staying home saves lives and so does mass protest,' you'd better show your work.
I guess I know too many ppl suffering to scoff at an uptick in suicides and drug overdoses and sneer that they 'just wanted to get haircuts.' I don't have it in me to be that ghoulish. Losing someone to a cancer diagnoses six months too late isn't 'getting a haircut.'
And this stuff is common. So what you have 'public health experts' saying is: protesting police brutality saves lives, but cancer screenings doesn't, and mental health treatment doesn't, and reducing poverty doesn't. No wonder ppl don't want to listen to you a second time round!
They could've said yes risks are real, here are mitigation strategies, you make the call. I will end with this: pictures of a protest from Israel, organized to mitigate spread of the virus. Our health experts could've said: 'do this' 
