George Floyd : Same sh*t, different day

Covid-19 and Black Lives Matters: Who cares?

No one really cares.

I will be 33 this year and if there is one state of mind that I have adopted over time, it is cynicism. An attitude of mistrust tinged with sarcasm and dark humor when faced with situations that revolt me. I shrug my shoulders and I divert my attention because nothing encourages me to think that there is a real will to address a problematic situation.

We all know the problems of our time: climate crisis, misappropriation of world wealth for the benefit of 1% of the population, tax evasion, racism, public health crisis, exploitation of African human and natural resources, feminicides, etc. These human perversions are our norm, our collective reality. We know them very well and even worse, we know the causes, the effects and the solutions.

And yet.

Yet nothing, we live with it.

We live with it until from time to time there is an epiphenomenon which reminds us that things are not going well at all. There was Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico, there was Marie Trintignant, there was Greta Thunberg, Trayvon Martin, Bezos and its billions tax evaded and at these days covid 19 still hovering. Each of these cases hides countless anonymous others in the mass of inequalities that make up the world in which we live. Each of these icebergs nudges us like a micro jolt that wakes us up for a few weeks of “Trend”.

The whole world becomes part of the cause of with #hashtags and temporary profile photos or “Je suis Charlie” even if nobody has ever read even a single line. “Black Lives Matter” even if 364 days a year, everyone lives their life without the slightest micro second of thought for those left behind by society. Some do it with deep sincerity, others because they have experienced a real awakening, and then there is the vast majority of those who do it to “be in the zone”. Because it’s the moment, it’s the “trend”, it’s the fashion of the moment. We are not morally and socially integrated if we have not displayed colors, slogans ourselves, if we are not pained, outraged at the unacceptable, the unjustifiable, the unqualifiable. We have to show that we are a good person too because we care. You have to be present even if you have no idea what is going on and how serious the issue is.

Then the trend passes. The dust settles.

Slogans, banners, demonstrations, hugs, brotherhood, awakening, all that disappears as quickly as it appeared. You can’t be angry all the time because on the one hand you have to move on and on the other hand you can’t be an activist 24/7. It is the vocation of some, not necessarily yours.

Life resumes its course as before between each trend. Until the next big thing. Until the next Christian Cooper, until the next Ahmaud Arbery. And in the meantime? Some speeches. Two or three “bodycam” initiatives by the police, a pseudo symbolic bill.

And it does the job enough for the audience to turn the page.
Until the next George Floyd and then it’s “replay”: demonstrations, banners, #hashtag, “I’m …”, etc … Then stop, break. repeat.

On and on.

Lessons learned? Different behaviors? Systemic revolution? Involvment of the powerful? Social fraternization?

Lol.

In short, I shrug my shoulders and I divert my attention because nothing encourages me to think that there is a real will to address a problematic situation.