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One thing I’ve been trying to understand during the protests is Why this time? Why is there suddenly open, widespread white support for BLM? Why has there been larger protest in general, among all communities, going so far as riots?
Up until now, Black Lives Matter has been, to most white folks I know, an activist group that they wouldn’t be associated with–bordering on extremist, even. Not a lot of people were sharing BLM memes and articles.
There were people arguing against BLM needing to exist because, they maintained, there wasn’t racism in the justice system to even protest; but those were the vocal opponents. Mostly, people just ignored BLM.
These days, though, there’s all kinds of white support for BLM. I’m hoping that the outrage and the support of BLM continue past current excitement, and I’m trying to figure out what nerve was struck–what made people care this much? What made white women support BLM? What will make white women continue to care?
Last weekend, I was in a parking-lot social-distancing meetup with two other middle-aged white women. We were talking about this question: Why now? My friend mentioned that she believes it’s because COVID-19 has people emotionally raw–we’ve all been feeling fear and uncertainty for months now, and it finally just erupted.
I think COVID is definitely a factor, but I wanted to get more input on why people in my own circles thought this could be happening–why we suddenly have visible, unabashed white support for BLM and why George Floyd’s is the death that pushed us into widespread protests and, in some places, riots. I am interested in what everyone thinks, to find common threads; in other words, why do Black Americans think this happened and why do white Americans think this happened–and where does that intersect?
So, I asked Facebook–my personal page. My intent was not to write about it, but I think there are some interesting points that people might want to read about.
My post:
I had a recent conversation about the current protests and riots, and I’m wondering the thoughts of others. Why was this the final straw? Why did this particular killing finally spark the protests and, furthermore, gain widespread support of BLM, which previously was seen as non-mainstream? I mean, outside of me and a few others, almost NO ONE (especially White) indicated supporting BLM for the past few years, and now it’s all over social media and all. Why now?
I mean, I have theories, like COVID (people are home, frustrated, mad at the government, seeing more news); and bam-bam-bam in a week or so span: the woman calling the cops on the birdwatcher, Ahmed Aubrey getting chased down by White guys and executed; and George Floyd’s death.
There’s also the callousness of the cop keeping his knee on a dead man’s neck while bystanding officers had hands in their pockets. Is it just that’s now too hard to deny police brutality, with things on camera?
Do you think more people were just more aware, un-busy bc of covid, etc?
Just trying to figure out the potential reasons why BLM finally got White support and why the whole country erupted into as far as riots?
A baby-boomer white female was first to comment:
I think it was the video of George Floyd being killed by Chauvin. And the three police officers doing nothing.
True, such police callousness–such disregard for human life–has never really been captured on camera that we’ve seen. There was no “the officer was scared for his life!” here for people to latch onto. The cop was kneeling on a dying-then-dead man’s neck and did.not.seem.to.care, as people were yelling, pleading for the officers to check on Floyd. And another cop, with his hand in his pocket just standing there, chill. There was no sign of remorse. They weren’t having an “Oh, shit, I killed a man” moment of regret, or even concern that it was all caught on tape. The lack of concern the cops displayed was like nothing we’ve seen on camera before. So maybe it was the nonchalant murder attitude?
great question and theories. I don’t know the answer, but I think it is all of what you proposed with a heavy foundation of it being COVID and people not as easily distracted with their “busy” lives of constant socializing, shopping, and entertainment.
True, it’s a lot harder to ignore news when you’re stuck at home. Maybe people are on social media for longer, so they’re seeing things that they normally would have scrolled on by?
A reply:
rather than not being “busy”, I am thinking more raw with the stress and tension of COVID. Raw rather than bored.
People are tense. Everyone is mad at the government right now, for making people wear masks or for not doing enough to stop the spread of COVID-19. People are feeling a lack of control–lack of control over the virus, lack of control over their freedoms, lack of control over their financial security; people are worked up and they’re raw.
That and racists aren’t hiding as much, making everything more visible.
Cameras definitely come into play here, but this isn’t the first time a cop was caught killing a man on camera. Eric Garner was choked to death on camera while he told them, “I can’t breathe.” That video didn’t attract the white support that Floyd’s death did. Why is that?
I wonder if hearing “I can’t breathe” again from Floyd struck a familiar chord of that plea that people remembered from last time? And people realized that the last time wasn’t the last time?
(But omggggg do I agree that racists aren’t hiding as much. When Trump was elected and we said he was emboldening white supremacists, we weren’t wrong.)
Next comment came from a Gen-X white male:
This was a reminder to me: people have very different definitions of “blatant” and “undeniable.”
Stalking a teen, ignoring 911 operator instructions not to follow him, getting into a tussle, and then shooting that unarmed teen is “undeniably” “blatant” murder to me–but a gajillion people, including a jury, disagreed. Maybe video would have made a difference? Maybe footage would have shown that Trayvon Martin was being killed by the kind of person who would later sell the murder weapon for $250K and profit like hell off of murdering a person. Maybe that attitude would have come through on camera like hands in pockets did.
And to me, it was “blatant” disregard for a Black man’s right to bear arms when Philando Castile was killed after reporting that he was legally carrying a gun. An acquaintance (middle-aged white male) who belongs to NRA told me at the time that members were talking about how it was bullshit, but where was their public support? Where was the “Black men have the right to bear arms” support?
But I digress…”Blatant” and “Undeniable” are on subjective spectrums and people will never agree on their meaning.
Lengthy video footage from multiple angles, unquestionably refuting every single claim that the police made in their report to make the killing justifiable, which gets not only the usual crowd but also the moderates on board. And instead of serving as guard dogs in the way of progress, even the conspiracy theorists are off chewing on the bone the media threw them about the two men being coworkers with a history of hostile interactions. The president is too busy putting out fires on the COVID front while trying to get his campaign off the ground, and the white supremacists tried the usual tactics of disparaging the guy’s character, but it didn’t really stick in this case, so most of the usual roadblocks are missing.
Interesting note about the usual roadblocks being missing. Also, the multiple camera angles–there’s less opportunity for “We can’t see what really happened!” when footage comes from more than one angle. And while some folks have continued to try to make it stick that Floyd was a bad dude, there are fewer people falling for it this time. More people seem to be saying, Wait, maybe we should stop letting cops be judge, jury, executioner.
Next, a Gen-X Black man commented (I cannot for the life of me remember if he is Black or mixed-race Black/White, but he passes as Black (something I’d love to explore in the future–America calling everyone of a certain shade Black, even if they’re mixed-race; they’re never just white, but often just Black):
Every movement has its uprisings. I think a lot of things played into this particular one. First and foremost we’re just tired of hearing the same ole’ BS and gaslighting and still seeing black people gunned down, choked out and beaten for no more than a minor traffic stop, fitting a “description” or selling loose cigarettes. Systemic racism to sum it all up. Then COVID-19 and people having more time to be informed and not being worker bees. To say that they were out there protesting because they had nothing else to do, yeah maybe the few but the majority are sick and tired of it and the have the time to organize and make a statement. Oh, I’m not here to debate about the looting btw. Stealing is wrong but stop with the red herring and start to look at the why and not the what.
This wording about COVID-19 spoke to me: “and have the time to organize and make a statement.” People have had the time to organize.
People have time to read about racism, and time to learn the names of people they had been able to ignore in the past, and time to make signs, and time to send facebook invites, and time to schedule a protest for Friday. Time.
(And coming from a Black man, “…First and foremost we’re just tired of hearing the same ole’ BS and gaslighting and still seeing black people gunned down, choked out and beaten for no more than a minor traffic stop, fitting a “description” or selling loose cigarettes” is a voice we need to hear.)
“Witnessing abhorrent behavior is no longer restricted to investigative reporting.” It’s true. You don’t have to dig deep.
A Gen-X white woman currently living in Scotland as an expat said the following, adding a Tweet:
I think it is absolutely no coincidence that the protests happened while we were on lockdown. Consumerism is like a great big pacifier the government wants to keep shoved in our mouths in case we start actually thinking about things for any prolonged period of time.
— Matt Haig (@matthaig1) June 15, 2020
I mean, yeah–we’re not busy buying and consuming, so we’ve got time to think about society and government.
She then added-
I’m really interested / cautiously optimistic in the amount of young white people who have been going to protests. Especially in the US, blue / pink collar white people have been bought off for decades by it being “possible” for children to do financially better than their parents and get the secure job / house / white picket fence etc.. My own family, and that of many of I know, are absolutely examples of that. Obviously, being white still conveys massive advantages in the US, but that possibility for a decent future is becoming increasingly unlikely for so many more people. (And has traditionally only been possible for a minority of Black people.) I’m hoping that what these young white protesters have clocked is that the Black liberation and the destruction of racism is a necessary condition for building a properly just and fair society for everyone. That being said, racism has always been a powerful tool for preventing cross-racial solidarity between people with shared economic interests, so it remains to be seen if this newfound white political consciousness will stick once it becomes less trendy.
Her note about racism being a powerful tool to divide is something we have GOT to remember–we can’t let those in power divide us over race any longer.
Gen-X white male:
Everyone is home, restless and uncertain of the future. Then then see a black man killed by white men who DEF seemed like they were out hunting like it’s a regular day in the neighborhood and the video goes unnoticed for a month…. had that video not surface, who knows if anything would have happened. Then a man is in handcuffs begging to be able to breathe and dozens of people are around watching and screaming for help for man and they watch as his life leaves his body and they aren’t able to help him. They weren’t screaming to uncuff him, they were saying to let him breathe. Then everyone is told to stay inside and sit in fear of covid while others say covid is nonsense and then people again are just trying to figure out what is going on and how to change this. This is all my opinion!! This does not include any rioters or looters or anything, just the protests for BLM.
This commenter touched on that bam-bam-bammednes I mentioned in the beginning: this happened just after people were made aware of the video of white men hunting down Ahmaud Arbery and killing him, and then not even being arrested. These two white men got out their guns, chased down a Black man, and killed him, and the police didn’t arrest the men who hunted him down. It took national outrage for arrests to even happen. That’s how little regard the law showed for the life of an unarmed Black man the day he was murdered: not enough to arrest the men who hunted him down.
Agree with all your potential causes and will add one: Trump.
I had intentionally left Trump out of my original thoughts because I didn’t want to turn off any Trump supporters from responding (not that any did). I did reply, though:
His reaction certainly exacerbated it. And there has certainly been buildup since he was elected. His reaction with the police/guard etc backfired (except to his Trump-does-no-wrong supporters, but they’ve long-accepted that he could stand on 5th Ave or wherever it was and shoot someone and wouldn’t lose supporters.)
I think it’s important to note that Trump’s militarized response showed people that police brutality and abuse of power is in itself is a thing–an actual thing.
The police will shove an old white man down in the street, walk over him, and even stop another officer from checking on him, as he and his cracked skull bleed all over the ground. That’s the kind of disregard for human life that the police can have, and everyone saw it–and saw all the officers around him tolerate and support it. It’s getting a lot closer to the white folks who had been able to ignore it.
In fact, one facebook friend posted right after the Buffalo man was injured. He’s an older white male. He said that was the one that really got to him.
So all those killings of Black men had been easier to set aside, perhaps because it didn’t seem like it could happen to him. Thanks to the response to the protests, though, people are seeing now that yes, police brutality could happen to them. Who knows–this could be what retains white support for BLM.
Maybe many white people are never going to return to feeling secure that the police are their friends. Maybe they’re starting to understand how others could feel that way.
The high stress of being quarantined, the poor leadership managing the COVID crisis, people losing money, and the fact that it’s an election year makes for a perfect storm to reveal what has been in the shadows all of this time. There have been videos before and riots before, remember the guy Rodney who was nearly beaten to death in South Central Los Angeles? We try to make things better until the next crisis in the media. Still we should keep trying. It’s only when we stop do we do wrong
The “Perfect Storm” comment is perfect. This is a perfect storm.
As for Rodney King’s beating, though, the outrage was not country-wide, mainstream, and so supported by white Americans. That’s the thing I’m trying to pinpoint: Why is this different? There have been plenty of racist crises in the media between Rodney King and Spring 2020. Why were those ones easier to ignore?
Was it different to see something on your TV, and only your TV, as opposed to having this murder in the palm of your hand?
One woman commented to say, simply, “All of the above.”
And that about sums it up: All of the above. All of the above created a perfect storm. Undeniably.
PS- FFS Arrest the officers who killed Breonna Taylor and then left the police report nearly blank. Presumably that’s how much regard they had for her life: Blank.
