I guess I didn't get the memo that racial injustice is over, because I don't see any posts anymore.
A few months ago we all witnessed the murder of George Floyd, this horrific event was recorded and drove protests around the world. Not only did we see protests we also saw increased posts on social media, condemning the actions of the police officers. In all my years I have never seen so much attention for racial injustice. If you were not posting on Facebook or Instagram about racial injustice, you would get called out by others. Many people started to unfollow others because they would stay silent.
Although this was truly great to see I had mixed feelings, feelings that really impacted me daily. First I couldn't help but wonder why it took people so long to understand what black people have been saying for such a long time. I understand that this event was recorded, but the reality is that this was not the first murder of a black person by the hands of police officers that we have seen filmed. What was different? Why are people so engaged now?
Each morning when I woke up, I thought the same thing. When will the flavour of the month end? When will I wake up go to instagram and start to see people posting about their flowers and gardens? and forget about the issues that we as black people have been dealing with our entire lives.
Well it took around a month and a half, for people to stray from posting about social injustice and focus on what life means to them. The issue is that the life that everyone was posting about and talking so much about has not changed for black people. We still am black, We still feel threatened by police, We still have to deal with these issues every day. This was my biggest issue, deep down I knew the energy that I was seeing would go away.
So we are a couple months out since George Floyd and I wake up in the morning and what do I see, yet another black man by the name of Jacob Blake being shot down this time in front of his children. So I ask myself the question what was it all about? What was all the posting about because this has not stopped and we as black people knew that it would not stop. So what was it all for?
We live in a scary time. Social media drives peoples behaviours. We live in a society were it is more important for someone to record and repost racial injustice, instead of stop racial injustice. This society that we live in has people posting about racial injustice just because it is the flavour of the month, posting about racial injustice because it may get them more followers. We live in a society that has people taking pictures as if they give a shit.
This is a reminder for everyone that thought that supporting racial injustice was a trend, well the reality is, this is a life long journey, and if you are not in for the long haul stay on the sideline, we can't afford to have fake posts.
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