The three words “I Can’t Breathe” refer to what some police brutality victims, like George Floyd, Eric Garner and Manuel Ellis, said before their untimely deaths at the hands of law enforcement.
Would it be fair to say that you are representative of the majority demographics in your area, or even the majority of the most local powerful demographic?
The reason I ask is because I often find that the people who are confused/surprised by protests like these are not typically from members of groups who experience over-representation in the criminal justice system. As in, the people who are less likely to experience the problem first or even second hand are more surprised when the problem is finally highlighted for them through novel methods.
You don’t have to hate minorities to not prioritize fixing problems which predominantly harm minorities. People focus on problems which affect them, because there are a lot of problems worth fixing.
So when there is a police department staffed primarily by the most powerful demographic, it is pretty clear to marginalised people that they’re not prioritizing the problems that reinforce existing systemic barriers put in place by people who… maybe did hate minorities at least a little.
So then those people affected by the continuing problem find ways of bringing it to the majority’s attention in ways which are less likely to be ignored. This one was pretty successful, and even better, didn’t cause anyone physical harm in the process.
