On George Floyd, Riots, & Social Media

Chaos and uncertainty have marked the last few months, I know I have felt powerless and out of control and small. Unprecedented times are uneasy and for me, make me quicker to react. I have less patience and grace than I’d like. But I think we can learn something from our knee jerk reactions and our fears. Close your eyes and think about the last few days. What has upset you most?

Burning buildings and broken windows, a gross disrespect for property and livelihoods, might be the first thing that come to mind. Acknowledge that thought. Of course in an ideal world they wouldn’t get damaged to begin with, but buildings can be rebuilt and windows can be replaced. Some businesses even get their expenses covered by insurance. We have to dig a little deeper - what are the conditions that created a storm of this magnitude? What pain are people feeling and what outlets do they have right now?

Black people have died and continue to die from overactive police force. #GeorgeFloyd was choked to death on video. #BreonnaTaylor was killed at home. #TonyMcDade gets misgendered even after his death. #ArmaudArbery went on a run three months ago and his killers were only arrested after a video recently surfaced. These deaths are profoundly tragic and wholly preventable, and maybe it’s harder to acknowledge the magnitude of the death of a stranger in this COVID era where 100,000 people have died and we move on like nothing has happened but these losses have enormous tolls. When someone is killed by the police, it’s traumatic for their family and entire community. It’s emotionally and socially and economically destabilizing but the aftermath has a physical toll too. #EricaGarner died a few years after her father #EricGarner was choked by NYPD, leaving behind a five month old son she named Eric. Both #AtataniaJefferson’s father and mother died shortly after their daughter was killed in her home by the police. It feels impossible to quantify these losses but the impact can reverberates farther than we can see. And someone doesn’t always have to die - plenty of black people have been stopped by the police or a vigilante and the stress of staying cool and trying to stay alive in such a terribly unpredictable situation can be awfully traumatic too. Black parents every time their kids leave the house, partners of black people every time their loved one goes out, just have to hope they’ll make it back home safe. There’s real fear here, and there’s anger that if (when) a black person dies without due process, there’s no accountability.

Black people and people who love black people are hurting. Last night, many gathered in large cities for peaceful protest, to hold space for grief and to feel connected in these dark times. Assembling together in groups or in protest is a hallmark American right, enshrined in our first amendment. When anti-mask protestors stormed the capitol in Michigan with military grade weaponry, they were politely greeted by police but when black people assemble to protest racist violence, the police aren’t so friendly. There are *multiple* eye witness accounts for many cities that these events were quiet and peaceful until police officers provoked the crowds (sometimes with tear gas) or outsiders who joined the demonstration, often white people with a conflicting agenda, started destroying property. There’s a video of a police officer kick starting a riot in South Minneapolis. Back in 2015, an investigation showed that during the unrest following Freddie Gray’s death, Baltimore police officers helped loot pharmacies and resold prescription drugs. Naturally, the narrative is derailed and #BlackLivesMatter is responsible for damage they didn’t necessarily instigate. The footage of the riots is scary, but I would be very critical of the coverage you read, who gets blamed and what’s left unsaid, which types of violence are highlighted (a building on fire) and which are erased (a police officer’s knee on a man’s neck). Isn’t it impressive how quickly protestors get arrested when it takes so long to arrest police officers who killed a man in the street?

But culturally, can we really take such a smug stance against riots? Non-violent protest like Colin Kaepernick’s at NFL games is swiftly punished and then ignored. White people riot when their sport teams win and when they lose and when their coaches get traded. Didn’t we laud the Boston Tea Party in US history classes? Pride is a cute parade that we love to dress up for but it started with the Stonewall Riots. We learned a sanitized version of Civil Rights Movement, but the non-violent approach worked in part because of more aggressive, violent tactics from folks like the Black Panthers (many of whom were quietly taken out by the US government).

Doctors, like police officers, hold an enormous responsibility and the public should be able to trust them to keep people safe. If there were a small number of doctors who killed their patients violently, I know that the medical community would swiftly address this - doctors would hold each other accountable, licenses would be revoked. Doctors have been critiquing George Floyd’s awful autopsy since it was released yesterday. I know that police officers have a stressful job and are often walking into situations where their lives might be at stake but I don’t understand why the “good cops” don’t hold everyone in the profession to a higher standard.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of the internet in social change these last few days (I just read Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino and *highly recommend* it!) - and it’s easy to lose sight of what effects change. Social media has distorted our sense of scope, and we might over estimate the reach we have on our personal channels. Posting an image to your insta story or a retweeting an interesting tweet can be great learning for you and those in your inner circle, but in the grand scheme of things, little actions like this are more for ourselves than the cause. It doesn’t mean these actions don’t matter and we should all use our voices of course, but we have to be realistic about our impact - sharing a post doesn’t lead to concrete change unless we’re having hard conversations with friends and family, calling politicians, donating to causes, signing petitions, showing up to protests (this is harder in the social distance era- more below), and voting too. Social media can be a digital extension of our advocacy but isn’t enough on its own. I wrote this post to help process what’s been on my mind, and I shared in case my friends might learn something new by reading, but these long form essays aren’t heralding sweeping change on their own. If you don’t have much capacity to act outside of social media in this moment, that’s okay too, times are tough and it’s important to listen to yourself, but be honest with yourself about your contributions. The national conversation has shifted a lot in last few years which has been great to see, but systems to keep black people safe and hold police officers accountable when they do harm have not caught up. Few officers have been tried for their crimes since #BlackLivesMatter emerged in 2013. We shouldn’t lose sight of what the end goal is here. We need policy change and an end to the violence against black bodies.

Here’s a great list of how to go beyond the social media posts: https://bit.ly/georgefloydaction

And a final note - I don’t think it’s my place to comment on how folks cope and process. But from a public health perspective, it is uncomfortable to see large gatherings happening right now. Not everyone is wearing masks and it’s not always possible to keep six feet of distance. I know we want COVID to disappear already, but it hasn’t. Georgia has muddied the data with its limited testing, writing off deaths as not covid related, and releasing mislabeled charts. We have no idea what the state’s actual case rate and death rate are. If you’re going out, be aware of these risks and willing to accept what may happen. It’s not fair one bit, especially when 80% of Georgia’s hospitalized patients are Black, but it never was quite fair to begin with. That’s what we’re working on, right?

Here are some recent tweets from folks on the ground who can say it all better than I can. Sending lots of love out to the world ❤️

“A riot is the language of the unheard,” -MLK