The George Floyd Effect

I think it's starting to happen. The whole world has flipped its lid. And it's been slowly rolling around for years, let's face it. With the ubiquitous corruption we all encounter on a daily basis even if we're trying like gangbusters to avoid it, we're all just a bunch of latent looters, arsonists and vandals anyway, (or as the largest single cause of this situation might say himself, "or worse."), aren't we? Are we as far removed from our primitive urges as we pretend we are? Or do we just need the right catalyst to revert all the way back to our primeval roots where brains were undeveloped and violence was the solution to almost everything?

Maybe Covid isolation and cabin fever has hastened this collective mental eruption. Not sure. But I, for one, have been awaiting anxiously, praying for this sort of thing. Not just for George Floyd or corruption and racism within police forces, though I am glad to see it. I've always been a HUGE Floyd fan. Ar ar. Too early to joke about? Well then you're gonna hate this:

 

Black lives DO matter. I'm 100% behind that! However, there are a number of things we need to watch out for. A number of things that could send righteous indignation spiraling out of control into the exact same thing those righteous people are indignant about. Let me give you an example. An obvious example. I hope I don't get any opposition because it seems like an obvious example to me, but then, I might not be so emotional and illogical about this situation as some otherwise very intelligent people I've seen doing, saying and posting things that aren't very smart. You have probably seen it too. You may have even seen this meme:

I shot Martin Luther King Jr. So did you if you're white! We should feel guilty about this. Because we're white. That's the message behind the meme. Well I don't feel any guilt about my skin hue because it wasn't my choice. I don't claim any part of the shooting of MLK Jr. because when it happened, I wasn't quite a year old yet. I couldn't even operate a spoon let alone a gun. And having studied the man, and grown up to support virtually all of his major messages, I am confident that I wouldn't have shot him, nor would I have supported his shooting in any way. In fact, I would have protested it. But I need to feel guilty! Why don't I understand? My skin makes me a murderer! It sounds absurd when it's said like that, doesn't it? But the absurdity is exposed through logic. Sometimes logic is blocked. Sometimes purposely. I don't know, but maybe this meme was put out there with the purpose of creating the very same violence Dr. King opposed so vehemently, only in reverse. It doesn't matter to some people whose vested interests are to create separation, segregation and fighting as a form of distraction from more important things that they don't want people protesting about. Black people hating white people is just as good as white people hating black people. As long as they don't land in the middle, they'll keep fighting.

This is undoubtedly the kind of thing MLK Jr. would oppose. It's just flip-flopping a very bad thing. You can't convince me that he wanted black control over America. He certainly didn't want black only schools, restaurants and drinking fountains, whether the good ones were for the white people OR the black people. To tell you the truth, I LIKE the back of the bus. I never understood the Rosa Parks story. But do you think it would matter whether the black section were the front or the back? Of course not! The separation doesn't matter to certain people who enforce it, so long as it's there. It can be flip-flopped, and this is sometimes, in these situations, what happens. People get emotional, caught up in group dynamics, peer pressure and protestor power and they go too far. When they get what they've fought for, they keep on going for more.

Not being from the U.S., I have no skin in this game, but having lived in areas of Canada with high concentrations of Indigenous people, (who we still ignorantly call "Indians,") I can tell you that over the years when they went from having their land stolen and even getting killed by the white man, to having special rights and freedoms, it hasn't brought about harmony. We no longer call the Inuit Eskimos, but insisted on calling the Native Canadians Indians until very recently. The tone deaf fact that they are still referred to as "Indians" in most or all the legislation that has been drawn up to deal with them, should give you a clue that there has never been any intention on the part of the lawmakers and politicians of Canada to create equality between Canadian natives and other people. I dream of a day when natives and other Canadians realize that we're equal, the Canadian government has screwed us all! To borrow a familiar phrase, separate, but equal, the government has screwed us separately, but equally. But I think that realization is precisely why we are strategically kept at loggerheads. If we were truly equal, and how hard could that be to bring about, honestly, we could unite against the common enemy: the people who own us all.

Did you know that native Canadians were not considered Canadians, nor could they vote until 1960? And the sexism! Until only a few decades ago, when a "stutus" "Indian" woman married a "non-status" man in Canada, she lost her native status and privileges whereas if a Swedish, ginger woman married a "status" Canadian "Indian," she got "status" and privileges. I know a girl named Zoe of Swedish heritage who married a native and had her housing, food and education entirely covered by the Canadian government. And nothing is ever covered by the Canadian government, it's covered by the Canadian people. Do you think for half a second that the drafters of the laws that enabled this situation DIDN'T anticipate the jealousy, resentment, hatred and conflict that would result from them? Of course they did! That was their major purpose!

The "calculation of Indianness" is a thing in Canada! STILL! I don't know if it includes comparing your skin colour against swatches like you're trying to choose a dark beige tone for the living room drapes, but it might as well, eh? This is just one of many examples of the state of ugliness that exists right now in Canada. Here is a long and ghastly summation of it. It was the result of intentional overcorrection, and this is what happened in some other areas in Canada as well. People from other countries have a lot of advantages in investment, government assistance and other areas. This does the opposite of creating equality or harmony. We like to portray ourselves as a happy, multicultural country, but the government is constantly fighting against that by creating inequity in employment laws, business laws, and many of the basic things that make up Canadian citizens.

I can very easily see this happening in the US. This current situation will be abused by those who want division. Look who you have running the country! He's the one I referred to as "the largest single cause" of recent escalation in disharmony in the US. As if you didn't know...

I'm trying to think, if I were a lifelong pacifist, left wing, socialist who believed strongly in the equal treatment of all citizens in my country, saw what happened to George Floyd and many before him, chose to protest against racially-based violence, had a passion roiling inside my whole life, found a voice in a protest, a strong voice, in massive numbers... would I power trip? I don't know. It seems unlikely, being a lifelong pacifist, but who's to say? However, if I were a scumbag looter, arsonist, car-flipper, mugger or whatever, ANY large exhibition of social unrest and civil disobedience looks to me like a green light! For another example from Canada, when the Canucks lost the finals in 2011, I seriously doubt it was just hockey fans doing the rioting. Perhaps the scumbags who came out to join and escalate happened to be Canuck fans, but that wasn't what made them crazy. That's my opinion anyway. I've lived in Vancouver. There are lots of assholes there who don't need much of a catalyst. I'm confident the same could be said for the cities where the protests have gotten out of hand in America.

But, here's another thing to watch out for, and I've seen some keen-eyed Americans already doing so: those with vested interests in creating separation and conflict within your society are just like the looters, they don't need much of a catalyst either. I have seen pictures and read articles about conveniently placed piles of bricks along protest routes.

Now who do you suppose put them there? Those who want things to escalate so that they can write off the entire group of protestors as a pack of asshats. The same thing happened back when people were marching on Wall Street and getting closer to what they really SHOULD be protesting in America. The media showed the worst of the protestors (who may not have been conscientious protestors at all) doing drugs, acting erratic, and by association wrote off all protestors demanding very real and urgently needed social change in the country.

In summation, I think it's great, the protesting I'm seeing in the US and around the world. I'm worried that it might get carried away, and I'm even MORE worried that it might, by design, distract us from other things that are far more worthy of our efforts. Indeed, if we protested with such gusto, the things more worthy of protest, and WON, I think police corruption, a lot of racism, and other things that keep us from harmony, would all melt away. Unfortunately, I don't have the links or examples or proof of what I believe is true for the whole world, likely never will, so I would be written off as a conspiracy theorist with the aplomb of Wall Street protestors and current social activists being written off as thugs. I maintain that someday we'll all figure it out and get really angry and protest in throngs that dwarf the examples we're seeing on social media these days. I say, "we," but doubt it will happen in my lifetime, if at all.

At the very least, this is good practice. I hope the protestors won't be considered rioters and their message won't be buried by the media. I believe there ARE some things FAR more worthy of protest, and I would definitely advocate angry, violent protest in those cases, but in this case I hope the indignation will suffice. And I hope equality can result, not reversed inequality in which black Americans are considered superior to other citizens. Reasonable heads. That's what I wish upon my American friends and neighbours now in this trying time. At the very best, I hope they will prevail and I hope the success proves to be a catalyst to encourage other more urgent social change in the US and worldwide. I am actually encouraged to see this and I'm behind the protestors! This could be a turning point that may in future be called something like the George Floyd effect. If it is, let the dominos of corruption fall!