Flashback and Why We're Part of the Problem

The pic that galvanized White America
Everyone remembers or has heard of the tragedy at Kent State on May 04, 1970.  Even if they only recall the Pulitzer Prize winning photo of a student kneeling over a dead student, screaming, they are familiar with the tragedy.  What most aren't familiar with is the shooting at Jackson State in Mississippi ten days later.  The women's dorm stood riddled with over 400 bullets fired by the police.  Two students lay dead at their hands.  Like Kent State, Mississippi police claimed they responded to a call of a sniper on campus grounds.  No evidence of the call or sniper existed.
The pic no one remembers

The Pulitzer Prize winning picture of the dead White student at Kent State galvanized the nation.  Over 400 bullet holes in Jackson State's women's dorm went largely unnoticed.  Fifty years later, most of us still remember the Kent State tragedy with that Pulitzer Prize winning picture clearly imprinted in our memories.  No one today remembers the bullet holes riddling the women's dorm in Mississippi except the students who walk past it every day.  The building is still scarred with bullet holes and the memory from fifty years ago.

Our memories are short, but it is telling which memories we retain and which are  quickly forgotten.  We were outraged by all the unnecessary deaths by police under Obama.  We quickly forgot about them as 2016 campaigning got underway.  In fact, until now, we haven't heard anything about police killings since Trump took office despite there being 1,099 killings last year, alone. 

Without reviewing each individual case, we cannot assume all the incidences were abuses by police. But the statistics do hint at a troubling trend.  Police are quick to draw the gun and ask questions later.  And the gun is disproportionately drawn on citizens of color.

Once the protests die down, we'll move on to the next hot topic of the day.  Maybe it'll be about forced vaccinations - surely to be a hot topic if one is made to fight COVID-19.  There is at least one abortion case the US Supreme Court is scheduled to rule on.  And, of course, there's Biden vs Trump, a show tailor designed to preoccupy us with daily entertainment.

So tell me, when was the last time you forewent a couple of hours of social media playing and wrote your elected officials about an issue important to you?  When was the last time you wrote a candidate asking him/her specific questions to help you decide who you should vote for?  When was the last time you wrote a local politician asking them their views on a hot topic and how he/she would handle it?  Can you tell me, without Googling, the name of the little boy in Ohio gunned down by police before the officers even stepped foot out of the car?

We are the problem.  We have short memories and are more concerned with our popularity on social media than we are about what those in positions of authority are doing.

"No one listens to the little guy, anyway."

"I'm not a good writer."

"I'll sign a petition, but really?  Write an email?  Only an office flunkee will read it."

And the excuses keep piling up.

Ditch social media one night out of the month and devote all your ideas, witticisms, and questions to those in authority.  If you find the social media habit hard to break, find the social media outlets those in authority use and spend your one night a month there.  Fight for social and policy change where it matters.  Your popularity, likes, and shares will be waiting for you when you return to your favorite social media entertainment sources the next night.

Let's not forget George Floyd.  If all we do is express outrage now on little known social media outlets and then forget about him when the next trending topic comes along, we've done nothing.  Somewhere down the road, when the next police abuse results in death, someone will come along and show us how we failed George Floyd - as we failed Tamir Rice six years ago and failed Phillip L. Gibbs and James Earl Green fifty years ago.

Posted by A Drunk Redneck

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