Protests work, primarily because corrupt and powerful people will not make changes that benefit society on their own. The protests happening now are unfortunately not about new issues, but about ones that victims and bystanders can finally document effectively. It's wonderful to see talk about defunding of police departments because police and military budgets are out of control and we've been promised reforms to no avail.
Justice for George Floyd (if convictions even occur) is only the beginning. And as Ferguson has shown, protesters are in danger after the fact.
While they are still around in their current form, police forces need to quit turning peaceful protests into riots. We see it happen again and again.
And every protester puts their life on the line. The police and white supremacists target them for violence, and they're also out during a pandemic. Hopefully masking is helping curb transmission.
We should be grateful to all protesters for forcing conversations. The things Occupy Wall Street talked about so long ago have gotten worse in the meantime, but because of them, we know what we're seeing.
