Timed Death--8:46 to Change A Life
This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-SA
The past few weeks in America has been challenging. Friends, family, and strangers alike have awoken to the truth of the American Mythos, “that all men are created equal,” is not true, that, in fact, more often than not the equality of the meritocracy is rigged. These rigged categories provide access, power, racial privilege, and enabled the monied class to exert an inordinate amount of influence. As such, the categories often effect the lower socioeconomic groups, and, as a result impacts outcome; and yet, the category of racial privilege handicaps other marginalized and disenfranchised groups – for instance – people of color.
People of color, who cannot hide the fact of their differentness, are often considered to be the other, which allows for bigotry, and or, to lesser degree prejudices to take root; and in turn, rigs institutions with foundational biases. Simply put, institutional racism allows for the structural power to be limited for the “rigged categories.” Therefore, institutional biases are installed by the hegemony that are dominant in defining terms of the social constructs, such as race, ethnicity, and myths. In addition, the dominance of the group sets the boundaries of the social contract. In simplified terms, “He has who has the most gold, makes the rules,” an obvious variant of the “Golden Rule.”
“Do unto other as you would have them do unto you.”
The two above rules, although a variation of the other, are tied together, in that, they are a correlation of one another. One sets a moral boundary, while the other establishes a cultural and societal caveat for ethical behavior. Behaviors that establishes the cognitive dissonance within social structures found in democratic societies. In the case of the United States, the confluences of institutions have the contradictory ideology within them; and, in fact, are reliant on the humanity, empathy, and compassion of the cultural mores that supposedly drives the American ethos. The short definition—the United States of America is a meritocracy.
The fallacy of the meritocracy is simple -- the social contract does not award those who do not already have the gold, access, power, or racial privilege to be among the original founding of the nation; unless, of course, one has succumbed to the rituals, and, capitulation of conformity. In other words, those that are elevated to the “rigged” establishment are allotted a “Golden Ticket” so the illusion of the meritocracy can be maintained.
The key to this maintenance is the ability to enforce the delusion of equity so that the fallacy of the American mythos can be propagandized. Thus, the American slogan in popular culture, “Truth, Justice, and the American way,” is no more than the establishment fig leaf for institutional justice inequities. The belief that the American justice system are equitable, and blind has never been true, in fact, the history of social justice equities is thoroughly refuted by the current display and action of policing in America. The more than 17900 plus fiefdoms of police agencies are agents of the establishment to maintain the coded perception of “rule of law.” Thereby creating a system, in which, the rigged categories social constructs or institutions are rooted within racism, in order, to provide a final divisive classification—implied racial privilege.
A prime example of the coded “rule of law” shocked and awed the United State of America, May 25th, 2020 with death of George Floyd, when four Minnesota police officers murdered, an African America man, for passing a possible counterfeit $20 bill, and for eight minutes and forty-six seconds police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on the neck of George Floyd, with his fellow officers kneeling on his back and legs.
Video George Floyd’s arrest
For eight minutes and forty-six officer Derek Chauvin and his officers in full display of the surrounding community murdered with impunity George Floyd. The community watched and recorded his death, while some of the bystanders shouted their concern, Derek Chauvin’s fellow officers failed to intervene to stop him from killing Mr. Floyd. The community witnessed the indifference to life by the officers performed for eight minutes and forty-six seconds; and, for the possible violation of counterfeit $20 bill murders George Floyd. Again, for a possible counterfeit $20 bill, apparently, and eight minute and forty-six seconds is the worth of a black man’s life so the messenging to disenfranchised and lower socio-economics groups that the state will with latitude keep their knee on your neck.
Video George Floyd’s Funeral
The message failed. Instead of the public succumbing to the normal paralysis and fear, the country writ-large saw the hard truth of their enforcement arm. The undeniable injustices that not only oppresses the disenfranchised and the usual suspect of minorities became suddenly relevant. The truth will out. The realization of minorities and the disenfranchised had been experiencing could no longer be denied. The masses came out to protest: the young, the old, the black, the brown, and the white, along with every shade in-between of the color spectrum realized the treatment of their fellow person within their own “imagined community” is, in part, not the shill the “rigged” community would have you believe.
In essence, the stereotypes, false flag propaganda, and myths were shattered although George Floyd was not the perfect subject for veneration his flaws made him more human—and as such the imperfection of his character made him more understandable banner for social justice inequities. The masses understood.
For once, the distractions of modernity were not in place to divert the attention of the populations. The perfect storm happened. The world has been going through pandemic that has not happened since the 1918 misnamed Spanish Flu. In addition, the economic shut down of the United States left the populations wearied and anxious. Leaving the populations sorted into the hyper-polarized groups to be on social media spaces, such as: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the discovery of TikTok by the Baby Boomers, the Thirteeners (Generation X), the Millennials (Generation Y), and the Silent Generation (Z).
Too much time on our hands. The pandemic left vast communities to be “bored in the house, in the house bored.” A TikTok video replay platform, in which, the TikTok’ers either lip sync, dance, or narrate short video clips to elicit a range of reactions. This platform performed a service that the modern distraction of sports and the entertainment industries usually provide—a community of commonality both real and imagined. Unlike Facebook, which is a reactionary and often familial, TikTok is performative, initially for the narcissistic youth whose need are to seek attention, but now not only completes that task, it also now illustrates a deeper meaning of community.
The pandemic for TikTok enables(d) the greater community to connect with complete strangers. The app is designed for commonalities: What songs one like. What movies one likes. What dances one like or “trending”; and, so on. The key to TikTok goes much deeper than its superficiality and the narcissisms of the young, but its ability to illustrate through subversion the idea that the young are creating something anew. In actuality, the young and old alike often find their common interests; sometimes through music; sometimes through movies; or sometimes through their own common superficial needs. Even more so, TikTok did something else that Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook couldn’t do—brings families together during pandemic even those that weren’t yours.
Understandably, the past few months one could get lost in TikTok, not because of the superficiality of the app. There is that for sure. One could get lost in it, because of the cultural curiosity of family dynamics. Again, the pandemic gave the Baby Boomers along with generations X, Y, Z the ability to connect; to find common ground. Many families participated in using the app to have an unofficial family reunion. Individuals and familial units found common grounds within these short videos to lip sync songs, to comedy, to dance, or to perform. Often dark humor was a relief valve to the shelter-in place for the husband, wife, sisters, brothers, parents, and, perfect strangers doing duet sync videos.
Within TikTok, there are for your page (#FYP) groups, such as Star Trek fans, Star Wars fans, Dave Chapelle fans, Earth Wind Fire fans etc., in all age groups each doing their lip sync rendition or performance. Grandma, Grandpa doing TikTok with their grandkids, and, moms and dads with their kids, and so on.
Taking a step back it's fascinating to see perfect strangers finding common interests, because the distractions of sports, movies, plays etc. weren’t there to be the "opium for the masses." The commonality of faith, family, marriage, and couples commitment on display demonstrated no matter what generation they were from the universality of relationships are the same. It did not matter, if they were black, white, or the various shades, or interracial, or variation thereof, such as same-sex marriage. Seeing the families together singing, dancing, or lip syncing made it somehow universal to the common person as well as appealing to the group dynamic of narcissism. The mother daughter, mother son, father daughter, father son dynamics shone depth in family that hadn’t really been put on display on regular basis until the pandemic shelter-in place all—TikTok gave America the family again.
The pandemic for TikTok did what Facebook and Twitter couldn’t do, bring communities together and have fun. In a very strange way, and yes, there is a community of trollers and extremist, the center mass of TikTok conditions the masses writ-large that they had more in common than not. TikTok is subversive. With TikTok most videos are no more than a couple minutes long—alongside celebrity, sports, and yes, political groups—and its non-traditional manner of commentary is insidious.
So, when George Floyd death hit the platforms, along with economic shutdown just beginning to peek its head out of the sand, the video platform Tiktok replayed portions of George Floyd video, a video four times longer, swelled the masses emotionally and pointed to Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to display the full video. While Facebook and Twitter are considered reactionary platforms, Tiktok is a connective tissue within the cultural malaise.
The focus on TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter social platforms has changed cultural and societal intersections; changed the dynamics of the “imagined communities”; changed the cultural mores through agitation; and, changed the perception of justice. More to the point, the social platforms, which are owned privately, whether with intent or not, resulted in the ideal vision of social justice. And, the eight minutes, and, forty-six seconds of George Floyd’s death was.not. it.
video of Ahmaud Arbery
Indeed, there were multiple examples of social injustice years previous with video, but in the year of the pandemic two more cultural and institutional cases of racism had been buried by the saturation of news media coverage in regard to the ineptitude of the Trump Administration mishandling of the covid-19 preparations. For instance, Ahmaud Arbery case, in Georgia, where two white Georgia men, with the assist of a third, ran down a young African American male, who was jogging, visited a home construction site—while jogging, found his life snuffed out. According to the three men, who ran him down, they thought he “was a burglar;” thus, giving them right to make a “citizen arrest.”
Story of Breonna Taylor
Story number two that was buried in the deluge of pandemic news cycles is that of Breonna Taylor. A hardworking African American female EMT, living with her boyfriend, and from all accounts looking to expand her medical career, was shot while she slept, with a police no-knock warrant. Her boyfriend had a legal conceal carry permit and he responded accordingly and defended his and his girlfriend’s castle. He followed up with a 911 call, reporting what had happened; that, someone was breaking into their house. The irregularities of the case reporting, the inconsistency evidence written versus photographs, has resulted in one officer being fired. The investigation is still on-going after three and half months and no satisfaction of charges. This case feels more of the usual stonewalling, and that, powers that be are biding time to placate the masses; fortunately for the culture writ-large “the sleeper has awakened.” The city council of Louisville, Kentucky passed a ban on no knock warrants called Breonna’s Law.
Nevertheless, the staggering giant of culture, and, the tides of history are roiling the events of the moment into a churning movement. If they political class fails, the repercussions in the fall’s election will, mostly, be devastating. Failure to lead in moments of crisis that culminate from deep within structures of primordial biases will only foment the baser violations of human ignorance and intolerance; eventually, allowing the strictures of society to contribute the ultimate destruction to the beacon of liberty.
For eight minutes and forty-six seconds Americans witnessed the murder of George Floyd, on May 25th, 2020; on March 13th, 2020, Breonna Taylor, Louisville Kentucky, slept while being shot eight times by undercover police and no body camera footage; on February 23rd, 2020 Ahmaud Arbery murdered on video while jogging. And, these are the ones that caught the eyes of social media; the information age of the internet is too saturated with deluge of violations with the “Karens”; the abusive “Cops;” the social contract is torn asunder through social platforms of Facebook, Twitter, and now the connective tissue of TikTok.
Before the eight minutes and forty-six seconds, Americans were obsessing on when they could go outside play, work, to have life go back to normal. The news saturation of the pandemic was a steady drone. The South, Southwest, and every state in between were dealing with anxious electorate. The electorate wanted to go back to work. The electorate wanted to go out play. The electorate is/was stir-crazy.
An electorate confronted with crisis, such as the one in North Carolina, on May 13, 2020, a missing teen girl, Lekayda Kempisty, reverts to old southern stereotypes, such as showing up as a mob carrying guns to a young African American teen boy, Dameon Shepard’s house who they believed to have the last contact with missing teen girl, only to realize that they were at the wrong address. The mob was led by a dentation correction officer, Jordan Kite, trying to force his way into the house—flanked by men carrying rifles—thinking that they were at the correct address at the time. Luckily, with the help of Dameon’s mother Monica Shepard, cooler heads prevailed as the county sheriff showed up. And, fortunately for America rationality took hold, unlike the events of Rosewood, Florida, and, the events of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The arc of history is bending towards justice through the generations that followed the turmoil of 1960s. History tends to repeat, but is never quite the same result as the event before.
Images of Rosewood, Florida
Images of Tulsa Race Riot 1921
We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. –Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.” Speech given at the National Cathedral, March 31, 1968.
In course of these events, however erratic, the culmination of the tidal flows will be adjoined to the technology of this time. The societal rules will either change or forever be entrenched to the societal core. The criticism of millennials plays familiar from each previous generation, yet there is something different. A rebuke towards cultural identity is involve and non-traditional values within the perception of “rigged” communities are agitated. Something the “rigged” communities didn’t count on; the eight minutes and forty-six seconds witnessing of George Floyd’s death across all the social platforms, while America is at rest, is an opportunity for the restless turmoil to take hold through protest and scattered violence to forever change the moral course of the universe.
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