Are the 2020 Protests Different from Earlier Ones?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

 

Americans are experiencing the biggest protests since 1968, sparked by a white police officer killing George Floyd, an African-American, in Minneapolis. Tens of thousands have been marching.

The sweep of the current demonstrations, in hundreds of cities across all 50 states (and elsewhere, including Canada), now lasting more than two weeks, have, understandably, drawn comparisons to other waves of social unrest. But these protests are in some ways different.

This time around, the country simultaneously faces large-scale unemployment wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic as well as racial disparities in the impact of the virus. 

For half a century, economic inequality in America has been on the rise, through both Democratic and Republican administrations, which has made the country more susceptible to both the coronavirus and its devastating economic effects. 

For months, the American people have watched their federal and state governments fail to educate and equip them during a global pandemic. Meanwhile, the things people normally turn to are now gone.  Many schools are closed without reopening dates. And it is hard to drink, party, travel and shop.

The global pandemic has left people scared, pent-up and unemployed. The country’s inability to ensure that people have access to paid sick leave and health care has made things much worse. Race-based health disparities have rendered this more visible. 

Against a backdrop of profound inequality, people of colour bear the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic. African-Americans, many of them essential workers, have been disproportionately affected by Covid-19. Rates of infection in predominantly Black communities have been three times higher than the rates in predominantly white communities.

Also, although half of the people shot and killed by police are white, Black Americans are shot at a disproportionate rate. They account for just 13 per cent of the U.S. population, but more than a quarter of police shooting victims. The disparity is even more pronounced among unarmed victims, of whom more than a third are African-American.

The confluence of two issues -- racism and Covid-19 -- along with a looming November election make this moment entirely unique.

We are also seeing more demands of accountability by the American public because these actions are increasingly caught on video. Technology has given the country widespread access to George Floyd’s almost nine-minute suffocation.

While most police officers are not rogue cops, policing has become more impersonal in the last few decades. Local police departments have acquired billions of dollars in armored carriers, grenade launchers and other war-zone gear. Some was military surplus; others paid for by Homeland Security grants in anticipation of foreign terrorist threats.

This has altered the relationship between police and protesters from one of the police as neighbours who are defending communities to something that begins to look like an army of occupation. That worsens social divisions – especially if the officers are white, while the civilians are minorities.

Also, in this visual landscape, one where almost everyone is masked, organized far-left groups like Antifa and By Any Means Necessary have taken advantage of the demonstrations to organize violence, which threatens to expand police repression to everyone out on the streets.

It is clear that the protestors come from many points of the racial spectrum. One of the differences in the recent protests over George Floyd’s death is that they have drawn a larger and more diverse cross-section of society. 

The sheer number of white protesters alongside Black community members has also changed the political calculus, perhaps even limiting overzealous, militarized displays of force.

Most Americans say the anger that led to the protests is justified, even if they don’t feel the same about actions that have resulted in violence. 

A Monmouth University Polling Institute survey conducted by telephone from May 28 to June 1 with 807 adults found that the number of people who consider racial and ethnic discrimination to be a big problem has increased from about half in 2015 to nearly three in four now.

Public safety is not just a matter of policing, but also requires investments in economic opportunity, education, health care and other public benefits. Otherwise America will remain stuck in an endless cycle of deaths and violence.