May 25, 2020...
It was on this day that the country seemed to change forever, when George Floyd, a black man, was murdered while unarmed by a police officer in Minneapolis. Six months ago we all gasped at our computer screens, in disbelief at the horror that could be present in our country. In those six months, we have seen both inspiring change and brief losses of hope in the United States. So much has happened that if I spoke on all of it, this post would be the length of a War and Peace book. Because of this, I wanted to look locally and see what has changed in Marin County six months after the incident that shocked the nation.
Protests
The reaction and heartbreak in the community was almost immediate. Nearly every Facebook page and Instagram profile had that sentiment of disbelief and the desire to make change. Citizens began organizing protests and marches all over the county - some in the hundreds. As a Black resident, it was at this moment I probably felt most supported by Marin.
Youth Organizing
Many Marin residents, especially youth, thought it wasn’t enough to stop at attending a few marches to show their dedication to supporting the Black community. Whether that was giving them a space to tell their long suppressed experiences with racism or advocating for antiracist legislation and policy, youth took it in their own hands to create action groups and initiatives. One of the most notable is @bipoc.of.marin, an Instagram account where students of color could anonymously write about racist incidents they have experienced at Marin schools. The account almost instantly took off, now with almost six thousand followers. Some of the other groups that were formed by the new generation of activists in response to May 25 were Police-Free Schools, ICE out of Marin, the Marin Alumni Network for Equity, and the group I helped found, Youth for Racial Equity.
Changing Names
The Sir Francis Drake High School name change debate has been a topic I have covered since the beginning, and this was just one of the many other conversations sparked by the Black Lives Matter movement. But with those pushes to change the school from being named after an infamous slave trader to something else, came with just as strong push back. What many activists and BIPOC students (including myself) thought would be a simple and peaceful process in this cartoonishly liberal county we call home, has proven to be...The county which voted both Obama and Clinton into office by over seventy percent suddenly appeared to be split fifty-fifty. Students were upset, parents were upset, and an entire Facebook group with over three hundred members was created against the name change. There was even a threatened lawsuit against the school by someone who appeared to be against the name change. After nearly six months of this back and forth the Drake Leadership Council (ironically named) voted in favor to change the school’s name. However, that has shown to not be as unifying as many people anticipated, and there is a fear that activists of color and allies are the ones who will suffer from that.
Hostility Towards the Most Vulnerable
Since the influx of discussing antiracism in Marin, there have been multiple incidents of assaults on people of color and white allies at protests. Only a few weeks ago a group of Trump supporters hosted a rally in Marin City, a town known for having the highest black population in the county. When it is clear that inevitable change is on the horizon, many will make their final attempt at stunting it without any concern for the consequences at that point. And with that lack of fear for any repercussions, it results in more impulsive and destructive behaviors towards whichever minority group that anger is harbored at. That leaves people like me often in fear, as well as my friends for me. I had several white classmates reach out to me to suggest I consider staying home a few days after the election, as there were rumors of there being riots with the sole goal to harm minorities. This fear of leaving your house because of a potential hate crime at your doorstep is hauntingly reminiscent of the 1960s.
The Fall of Interest
This is the only change that is not new. The cycle every person of color hoped would be broken by such a blatant infringement on human rights like the incident of George Floyd. And as the months passed, everything seemed to slow. The protests shrank, the Instagram posts stopped, and the advocacy for any tangible change simmered down to the core group that was present before.
The Lasting Impact
There is no telling the future of how much of these initial pushes will make permanent change. But as these six months have looked more and more like other waves of temporary activism, the outlook is not promising.
However there is one potential silver lining of these times, and those are the few people whose mindsets on Black Lives Matter have genuinely changed. Some who previously viewed the movement as fueled by a few isolated incidents of malpractice have seen the systemic problems in the police system. Some were hesitant to speak out, and this was their final push. And as long as those people continue as they are now, maybe there is a chance.