By Sarah Jacobson

Complacency propagates as the weeks crawl on. The initial trauma of the death of George Flyod back on May 25th, and the Minneapolis protests which supervened, are ebbing. Especially if this altercation does not affect you immediately it may be more pleasant to ride out the remainder of 2020 with blinders on, and an air of self-worn callowness. However, as a society with self-professed dogmas and ideals, there is malicious intent behind the concept of “waiting it out”. We can all claim we do not condone the notions of racism, yet when we withhold our voices to the plight of the groups and minorities directly afflicted, that silence fuels the root of the issue.

Earlier this week, crowds of several hundred people each gathered in downtown Minneapolis for back-to-back protests once again demanding a cessation to police ruthlessness and discrimination. The Black Lives Matter group and other unions organized the first gathering: the International Solidarity Day of Protest Against Police Terror. It began as a march outside a government center to the barricaded First Precinct police headquarters to express their opposition to police tactics and called for the immediate firing of controversial Minneapolis Police Federation president Bob Kroll. Later in the day, the second movement gathered on the plaza between the U.S. Bank Stadium and a nearby rail station. The intent was to embolden the assembly to take action in the days ahead to stamp out oppression.

The commonly held hope amongst the peaceful protestors was that the communities most impaired by law enforcement brutality should oversee the methods and procedures by which public safety is handled.

It is hard not to get discouraged when week after week it feels as if humanity is performing a Benjamin-Button-esque metamorphosis back to the debauched attitudes held by people decades–and even centuries–earlier. Temperaments soaked in bigotry, narrowmindedness, and, ultimately, selfishness. It is difficult to see the faces and hear the names Breona Taylor, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and countless others on a depressing memorial loop, serving as a reminder of the maltreatment of others at large.

And as a white writer, I am not sure what right I have to cast my words out there into the fray after all these months of unrest. But I scroll through the feeds, click on the articles, and watch the news. I see these images, taken in haste, capturing our soon-to-be-studied history and it perplexes me how this kind of systemic racism, inequality, and the capacity we hold to hate one another is still as prevalent today in 2020 as it was decades ago. While this issue is sprawling, and seemingly unrelenting, the driving force is perhaps people’s ability to do and say nothing.

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