“I’m Mad as Hell, and I’m Not Going to Take this Anymore!”

If, beside being battered by the news, you’ve also paid close attention, you may be sensing changes in the way people and governments react to various events. Look at the trial of that cop for his murder of George Floyd a year ago. Over the years, thousands of Blacks, usually unarmed and usually not guilty of anything but a peccadillo for which a white person would have been sent on his/her way with an apology or at most a ticket, have been slaughtered by the same kind of racist, murderous cops. Over the decades since Martin Luther King’s dream turned to nightmare, there has been no accountability for these crimes across the land, usually not even an accusation, so no punishment.

But that ugly tide seems to be turning. When George Floyd’s murderer was recently found guilty on three counts by the District Court of Minnesota, it was the first conviction in Minnesota, the first ever, of a white officer for the murder of a Black person. (208 cop-related deaths since 2008, see Star Tribune, 27/4/21). In a nationwide address after the verdict, President Joe Biden called the decision “much too rare” and detailed how it took a “unique and extraordinary convergence of factors” for the judicial system to deliver “basic accountability.” 

Quite a change from the tenure of the con man who for four dreadful years managed to play on the small ids of ignorant suckers and KKK remnants. That frightening time uncovered the ugly soft belly of everything that is bad in the US, but also ushered in the reaction of everything that is good. Black Lives Matter is now a full-fledged social and political movement that is not only not going away but set to expand dramatically and possibly, finally, bring about change.

Change is everywhere. For too long, many countries on our planet have been exploited and gouged and used as personal treasury and playing field rolled into one by repulsive individuals holding up charts of human rights, freedom of the press and a booming economy on lands in fact mostly devastated, with hordes of the exploited or the supine. The list would be long but anyone can instantly come up with names on all continents. The few civilized countries with actual governments unfortunately make a short list : Western democracies, a few others, too small or too distant or of unappealing climate or unattractive financial possibilities. Then there’s the particular case of India, « the world’s largest democracy, » under the crushing sway of Modi, that living insult to hinduism and to that extraordinary country.