Something has clearly shifted in this country.
Lately, each time an unarmed Black person dies or is maimed by police _ George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake _ the righteous outrage boils up, and it crosses all racial lines.
Especially in the aftermath of Floyd's death, which was chronicled in excruciating detail by a teenager with a smartphone, many white people, seemingly for the first time, came to understand that a callous disregard for the lives of Black Americans is not just a bug of the American policing system, but a feature.
And that Black people alone cannot fix it.
After Floyd was killed in May, white support for the Black Lives Matter movement surged, not just in polls, but also in peaceful protests on the streets of our cities, and even around the world. It was refreshing, inspiring and filled me with hope.
And now, a few months have passed, and a backlash has set in.
Media coverage of peaceful protests has ebbed, and instead we see near-constant coverage of acts of violence that have disturbed the peace in a few cities like Kenosha, Wisconsin, and Portland, Oregon. Self-appointed white militias, comprising men bent on enacting unfulfilled hero fantasies, turn out to "defend" businesses and property. President Donald Trump turns a blind eye, because the white militias are part of his base, and his reelection strategy depends on continuing violence that he can claim is the fault of Democrats.
Of course, arson and vandalism are wrong, illegal and counterproductive, and despite Trump's claims to the contrary, his Democratic opponent Joe Biden has condemned it.
But you can't help but see in these erratic incidents of property destruction a rough street version of what is happening legally to poor people every day in this country. People's lives are going up in metaphorical flames. They are losing their health, their jobs, their homes, and they are ignored by a president whose party has sent billions in free money to corporations but does not see the value of extending a $600 weekly benefit to individual Americans to keep them afloat through this unprecedented crisis.
