As social unrest was spinning out of control on Friday I promised myself I’d put only one post on my Facebook page for the whole weekend.
Considering that Minneapolis was burning, protests were spreading, unemployment continues to grow and we’re in the midst of a pandemic, Friday appeared so bleak. So, I chose to share the video from R.E.M.’s 1987 single “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” while wishing my family and friends a wonderful weekend.
I hope people understand sarcasm.
There is nothing funny about what’s happening in our country right now, and if I watch the national news exclusively, I get depressed. In talking with others, some share this feeling. People have thrown themselves into spring cleaning, gardening, crafts, their hobbies and the outdoors. Nice weather has brought out the motorcyclists, allowed for sightseeing — visiting businesses. I know these activities won’t remove all of our concerns over paying the rent, groceries, for meds, etc. Crippling financial exasperation exists in our community. For the last several years Wall Street has been great, but Main Street is in desperate need of people to do business locally. Being outside, shopping and traveling in Green County this weekend was a wonderful distraction for me. I had to wear a hat, a mask and socially distance, but I truly shopped for the first time in months. I even got a sunburn.
As I try to keep my free hours focused on healthy things, I understand many other people are focused solely on things happening elsewhere, politics, world issues — things we can’t do anything about — and that is frustrating. Obviously frustration is part of causing social unrest.
I believe all Americans are entitled to their opinions, to peacefully assemble, to the rights of free speech, etc. I, too, am horrified by the way George Floyd died and the example it is of repeated bad behavior by a very small minority of law enforcement officers against African-Americans. Decades after the civil rights movement of the 1960s we’re in the midst of another civil rights movement. It was inevitable and overdue. Enough people have become fed up. All people have to come together and understand that citizens of the United States are, according to the Declaration of Independence, “endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
That isn’t limited to the color of one’s skin. These rights are a promise to all Americans.
The boredom, anxiety, unhappiness and basic human suffering caused by COVID-19 has fueled many people with great tension and anger. Any number of situations could have been the spark to cause what’s become our national unrest. I don’t know when it’s going to end. It frightens me. I try to be upbeat and kind. I think we must respect the rights of all.
I, however, want lawlessness to stop. Just like during unrest during the 1960s over civil rights and against the Vietnam War, some of the protesting is wholly improper, unfair and an excuse for rioting and looting.
That’s wrong and takes away from the strong core message at the heart of the Floyd protests.
This looting and rioting excites an entirely different set of feelings held by other Americans — that law enforcement must be stronger because peaceful protests on such scales can’t exist in our America. As if they ever could or have.
During one of the famous “lectures” my father gave me while we were on a hunting trip in the 1980s, he said that people won’t stand for a second “Great Depression” in America. He said people have become used to having certain luxuries provided for them and many more Americans are armed with military-like weapons and possess moderate to heavy quantities of ammunition. Some of the people in this group are now in the very early stages of what is a lower- to middle-class economic depression.
We absolutely need calm, clarity, reflection, peace and change. I’ve heard and understand the true protestors concerned with Floyd’s death. I condemn rioting and looting and pray for law officers and National Guard units tasked to bring it under control with as much restraint as possible.
It’s my hope statesmanship will soon be restored and necessary, positive change in America will occur. It has to happen before a protest turns into either anarchy or fascism. If America is to continue, and I think it will, clearly civil leadership must make promises to all citizens that their rights will be respected.
— Matt Johnson is publisher of the Monroe Times. His column is published Wednesdays.
