AFTER MONTHS of being told to shelter at home, to keep businesses closed, to social distance, wear masks and follow the orders of government rulers “or else,” life in the U.S. became even more complicated.
On May 25, 2020, an African American man, George Floyd, was arrested by the Minneapolis police after purchasing cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. During a struggle with police, Floyd was pinned to the ground. Video footage showed that one officer kept his knee on Floyd’s neck for over seven minutes. Floyd lost consciousness and died. All four officers were fired. One officer was later charged with second degree murder and the others were charged with aiding and abetting second degree murder.
Justifiable outrage ensued – and not just in the African American community. ALL Americans were outraged, as they should have been. Police brutality is inexcusable regardless of the perpetrator’s race or the victim’s race. Tens of thousands of people began protesting, mainly in major cities. This is an understandable response.
But what happened next was shocking. Protests turned violent. Windows were broken, buildings were burned, and businesses were looted. Tens of millions of dollars of property was destroyed.
Americans were already polarized over COVID-19, and divided into two camps, those who “believed” that there was a pandemic and that the lockdowns and restrictions were justified, and those who recognized that the data just did not add up. The divide deepened further due to the response to the protests and the destruction.
People had a right to peacefully protest in response to what happened to George Floyd, but many people also had a right to ask these questions: If it is ok to allow tens of thousands of people to gather close together, mostly without masks, and to protest for several days in a row, why is it not ok to allow 200 people to sit together in church? Why is it not ok to allow a restaurant to be fully occupied? Why are school officials talking about maintaining six feet between desks for little school children? Why, if gatherings were so dangerous, and masks were so necessary, were some of our rulers openly participating and showing up at these events without masks?
Here are some examples. The Empress Whitmer in Michigan imposed some of the worst lockdown orders in the country, going as far as forbidding people to engage in activities like planting gardens or using their boats, yet she was shown in several pictures standing shoulder to shoulder protesting with other government officials and demonstrators.1 According to her office she did not violate her own executive order. But she did! Her order specifically stated “Persons may engage in expressive activities protected by the First Amendment within the State of Michigan but must adhere to social distancing measures recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including remaining at least six feet from people from outside the person’s household.”2 You can view the pictures online – Whitmer is standing less than 6 inches from the persons around her - not maintaining 6 feet.
In the ultimate act of hypocrisy, the empress warned only 30 days before her appearance at the protests that if anti-lockdown protesters showed up at the Capitol, she would extend the lockdown orders even longer. In other words, if some Michigan residents disobeyed, all Michigan residents would suffer. After all, she is the Empress Whitmer and she can do anything she wants to her subjects.
The King that now rules New Jersey, Phil Murphy, said that protesting police brutality is much more important than protesting because your business is closed, you are going bankrupt, and you cannot feed your family. “I don’t want to make light of this, and I’ll probably get lit up by everyone who owns a nail salon in the state,” Murphy said during a Monday briefing. “But it’s one thing to protest what day nail salons are opening, and it’s another to come out in peaceful protest, overwhelmingly, about somebody who was murdered right before our eyes.”3 What a tone-deaf thing to say! The person operating the nail salon and the employees who work for him/her cannot make a living while the business is closed. And King Phil does not think this matters? Of course not, as the lockdown has not hurt Murphy financially, the power-hungry despot could not care less about others and he’s openly showing it.
Murphy went on to say, “The decision to go out or not go out, as long as you do it responsibly, safely and peacefully that’s a decision, I would say, in this particular instance, I would leave to the individuals.” Funny, almost all of Murphy’s edicts from on high have not been left “to the individuals.” Individuals still cannot open their businesses or go back to work. His hypocrisy is disgusting. What if his decision had been different and he had said, “We must allow businesses to re-open” and had disallowed protests? This would have been equally disgusting. Either way, his decisions were capricious, and we should all be appalled.
In Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser visited a “Black Lives Matter” mural and removed her mask in order to pose with supporters and officials, all of them standing close together. It is always important to pose for pictures, and we all know that the virus does not pass from person to person during picture taking. Right. 4
Public health experts who were enthusiastic supporters of lockdowns also changed their minds about the need to remain at home and social distance when the protests started. “We should always evaluate the risks and benefits of efforts to control the virus,” tweeted Jennifer Nuzzo, a Johns Hopkins epidemiologist. “In this moment the public health risks of not protesting to demand an end to systemic racism greatly exceed the harms of the virus.”5
This sounds exactly like statements made about the lockdown, that the health risks associated with it are exceeding the benefits. An example is the doctors in San Francisco who reported that more people were dying of suicide than COVID in their area and perhaps it was time to end the lockdown. Yet the lockdowns in California continue, while the protests in California are massive at the same time. We think it is a fair question to ask why the benefits of protesting exceed the risks of harm from the virus, but the benefits of preventing suicides, overdose, deaths, bankruptcies, homelessness and food insecurity are treated differently.
Abraar Karan, a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, was an avid supporter of lockdowns, another member of the ruling class that did not have to worry about money or meeting a payroll or feeding his children. He showed no compassion for other people who were negatively impacted by lockdowns. However, he tweeted this about the protests: “The injustice that’s evident to everyone right now needs to be addressed. While I have voiced concerns that protests risk creating more outbreaks, the status quo wasn’t going to stop #covid19 either.”6 In other words, he has suddenly changed his mind in two ways. He thinks that staying at home does not stop the spread of COVID-19, and he has found a reason HE THINKS justifies going outside. Of course, everyone should have their reasons for wanting to leave the house or go to work vetted by a member of the ruling class like Karan, who knows so much more than the peasants who are clearly beneath him.
Tom Frieden, former director of the CDC, had just recently cautioned against opening the economy too fast. But he changed his mind and supported mass protests. He and others claimed that if we did not address racial inequality now, it will be harder to fight COVID-19.7 We are trying to figure out what this means – the virus will become more contagious or lethal if it does not approve of how we handle racial inequality?
For the record, we think it is important to address racism. We despise it, don’t practice it, one of us has been subjected to discrimination for other reasons, and we both would like to end it once and for all. But we can still think that what these people are saying makes no sense at all, and that the inconsistencies deserve some attention.
Hundreds of public health workers signed an open letter in response to these events that was almost incomprehensible, stating that demonstrations against the lockdown were rooted in white nationalism and represented disrespect for Black lives.8 Apparently the need to earn a living, educate your kids, and feed your family are now considered a demonstration of white nationalism. This is ridiculous and it ignores the fact that a person can hold two thoughts at the same time. A white person can be against the senseless killing of black people AND still wonder why he cannot go back to work or visit a library.
The letter states, “Protests against systemic racism, which fosters the disproportionate burden of COVID-19 on Black communities and also perpetuates police violence, must be supported. Staying at home, social distancing, and public masking are effective at minimizing the spread of COVID-19. However, as public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission.”9 What? Staying at home is protective, but they don’t see going out and gathering as risky. Which is it? In this case it can’t be both because people cannot stay home and go out and protest at the same time.
Perhaps the most hypocritically transparent response came from Bill de Blasio, the ruler of New York City. Throughout the lockdown he specifically called out Jewish communities who disobeyed him by having large funerals. When a reporter asked him why he was continuing to allow masses of people to be out and about protesting when religious services were forbidden, he replied, “Four hundred years of American racism. I’m sorry, that is not the same question as the understandably aggrieved store owner or the devout religious person who wants to go back to services.”10
There is either a public health threat or there is not. De Blasio’s response is scientifically illiterate. A lethal virus cannot possibly care about why large numbers of people are gathering. If it is dangerous to attend a funeral, it must be equally dangerous to be in a crowd of thousands protesting.
Still others argue that the virus does not spread easily outdoors, and the protests are outdoors which makes protesting safe. Again, this makes no sense. Beaches and playgrounds were closed and many still are. This must be another instance in which the virus is very choosy and rewards some behaviors while punishing others. The virus only likes for people to be outside for a specific purpose. Laying on the beach or playing on a playground – not good. The virus does not like this, spreads like crazy and becomes more virulent. Protesting –– the virus likes this and stands down.
There are several points we want to make in reference to these most unfortunate events.
First, the idiots making these statements are trying to do what our rulers have been trying to do – turn us against one another. We must not let this happen. We can be outraged at the needless death of a black American AND at the government’s irresponsible decisions at the same time. We should all be together on all of this because we are all affected by all of this.
Second, let’s consider for a minute that no one in the media is asking any of our rulers questions such as how they can justify the collateral damage to millions of people due to lockdowns, restrictions and closures, and then tell everyone it’s ok to protest in groups of thousands or even tens of thousands? Most members of the media have become criminal co-conspirators. They have contributed to the death and destruction that has resulted from the irresponsible and reckless decisions that have been made by health and government officials. One of the jobs of the media is to hold government officials responsible and accountable. One of the reasons why our rulers have been able to get away with what they have done is because reporters have not done their jobs.
Columnist Bethany Mandel, who called for the lockdowns to end and was called “the Grandma Killer” in a trending hashtag, says, “These people have killed tens of thousands of seniors in nursing homes. They won’t let us go out of our own homes for months. They’ve destroyed the economy. And now if you don’t do what they’ve been telling us not to do all this time - to gather with other people - we’re irredeemable racists. This is the scandal of the century. We’ve all been played.”11
Yes, we have been played. The smart thing would be for the people who did this to come clean and admit they were wrong. We could stop the nonsense and start rebuilding our country again. We the people would be a lot more forgiving if they were to do this. But they show no sign of doing this, so we the people are going to have to fix this ourselves. We cannot fix it if we let them wreak even more havoc by turning us against one another. This awful situation has affected everyone negatively, regardless of race, gender, religion, or any other identifying characteristic.
Martin Niemoller was a prominent Lutheran pastor in Germany. He emerged as an outspoken public foe of Adolf Hitler and spent the last seven years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. He is perhaps best remembered for his postwar words:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me”
We need to stand up for each other while we still can. We are better than this. Our hearts are big enough to want equality for everyone in every area. All of us deserve to be safe from law enforcement. All of us are entitled to the freedoms outlined in our constitution. And all of us are going to have to work together to protect ourselves and restore our rights.
ENDNOTES
1. Adam Shaw. Officials who pushed strict lockdowns now argue protesters are an exception. Fox News June 5 2020 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/officials-lockdowns-protesters-exception accessed 9.2.2020
2. Executive Order 2020-110 FAQs https://www.michigan.gov/coronavirus/0,9753,7-406-98178_98455-530654--,00.html accessed 9.2.2020
3. Adam Shaw. “Officials who pushed strict lockdowns now argue protesters are an exception.” Fox News June 5 2020 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/officials-lockdowns-protesters-exception accessed 9.2.2020
4. IBID
5. IBID
6. Dan Diamond. “Suddenly, Public Health Officials Say Social Justice Matters More Than Social Distance.” Politico Jun 4 2020 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/06/04/public-health-protests-301534 accessed 9.2.2020
7. IBID
8. Open letter advocating for an anti-racist public health response to demonstrations against systemic injustice occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Jyfn4Wd2i6bRi12ePghMHtX3ys1b7K1A/view accessed 9.2.2020
9. IBID
10. Mark Hemingway. The Media’s Double Standard on Protest Coverage. Daily Signal June 7 2020 https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/06/07/the-medias-double-standard-on-protest-coverage/ accessed 9.2.2020
11. https://twitter.com/bethanyshondark/status/1268539566090268672 accessed 9.2.2020