The George Floyd Revolution
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| Nearby the George Floyd Memorial at Chicago Ave & E 38th St in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Thursday evening following his memorial service, by Lori Shaul, CC BY SA 2.0 |
As you know, I'm a Star Trek aficionado. Early in the run of the best Star Trek series, "Deep Space Nine", the show had an episode where Commander Sisko and crew get transported back to the year 2024. Sisko gets wrapped up in what come to be called the "Bell Riots". This uprising starts to unsettle the racial and social dynamics of the US, and begins the slow process to the near-Utopia shown in later Star Trek series and movies.
The George Floyd Revolution is the Bell Riots made historical flesh.
Millions of people around the world have taken Mr. Floyd's death as a wake up call to fight against the drift our human family is taking. In our country, this was the spark which lit the flame. Plague, economic collapse, and the murder on live television of a human being by out-of-control police has finally made us rise up.
I'm not a determinist. I don't think some other spark would have triggered our current uprising. History works in mysterious ways. One would almost think divine. What we're experiencing right now is a confluence of events. We are in a moment because of unique, unpredictable historical occurrences. People have suffered and died to bring us to where we are now. We would be betraying their sacrifices to not push ahead, to not make the most of this extraordinary point in time.
History is what happens when you're not looking. No one expected a plague. No one expected this plague to send us into an economic and social tailspin. And no one expected that the murder of yet another Black man by police would reverberate as it has.
Just yesterday, NASCAR, that bastion of white Southern culture, announced that displays of Confederate paraphernalia would be banned from all its races. Of course, the mouth breathers howled. But NASCAR knew they would howl, and revolt, and it went ahead and did it anyway. Roger Goodell, NFL Commissioner, apologized for standing against players taking a knee to protest police brutality. CrossFit basically fired its founder because of his racist diatribes. This moment is accelerating and spinning out of control of any one actor. To bring in a metaphor from another science fiction franchise, this is the Butlerian Jihad against the tyranny of thinking machines. Americans are rising up against the tyranny of their history. The victors of 1865 are finishing off the unfinished victory over racism and treason. And it's not a moment too soon.
I can't pretend to know what our future will be. But I have a hope that a people enraged at injustice won't take its foot off the pedal. It will continue to advocate for righteousness. It will continue to sideline and disparage those who appeal to our worst instincts. And it will learn a hard lesson about apathy.
We are at the end of the beginning. The beginning of the end is in our hands.