You Say You Want a Revolution?

What has happened in the United States since Police Officer Take-a-Knee and his Three Stooges murdered George Floyd a week ago is not only sad, it is sadly too easy to connect the dots as to how we got from there to here. The kindling of this particular bonfire had been accumulating for a very long time. It’s not just about one civilian death in Minneapolis, as we have quickly come to realize.

• It’s about deep-rooted and systemic racism.

• It’s about gross and growing income inequality.

• It’s about the militaristic wanna-be dictator in the White House.

• It’s about our polarized political situation.

• It’s about the Coronavirus pandemic — people under virtual house arrest for months, feeling as if they are losing their “freedom,” and not knowing who or what to believe.

• It’s about social media and how terrible it often is, where anyone can say anything with little or no repercussions.

• It’s about the collective stress we are feeling regarding the (hopefully) upcoming national election, still five long months away.

• It’s about hopelessness.

Add it all up and it’s a recipe for revolution.

The rioting and looting sucks. Agreed. As does police brutality. The lesson for America—and its current lack of leadership — doesn’t stop with the arrest of ONE bad cop after the unfortunate and totally unnecessary suffocation of an unarmed, handcuffed Black man. George Floyd’s murder was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s imperative to see through the smoke and understand what the protestors are actually protesting. “A riot is the language of the unheard.” — MLK, Jr.

My very first ever college class was Sociology. The prof must have been better than I gave him credit for at the time—it was an 8 a.m. session—as more than four decades later I can distinctly recall several of his lectures. The vast majority of the knowledge one acquires throughout life accumulates via “educational osmosis” in that you have no recollection of how, where, or even…