Why #GeorgeFloyd's Murder Hit Different

I think there are a few reasons why this one hits different.

Part of it is that we lost the Kobes, Arbery, Taylor, Floyd consecutively.
So much lost.
So fast.
So unwarranted and senseless.
We’ve been in a perpetual state of lament, grief, and anguish.

But a larger reason, at least for me, is the fact that #GeorgeFloyd’s assasination happened during a pandemic.
In a time where we have been literally sheltered in place, isolated, quarantined, grieving loved ones--and literally just trying to survive--stay alive.
Collectively, as a nation, as a world--we have become still.
So still.

We have been so still, that this death, in plain-view became so loud, so abhorrent, so apparent (not only to us) but to some of those that would have been too busy, too privileged, and too consumed to pay attention, and care if this happened pre-pandemic.

We have come to grips with the fact that hatred, systemic and structural racism/oppression, and vile police brutality do not shut down.
They don’t pause, even when the rest of us have.

The fact that #GeorgeFloyd was killed by a knee, when all we were trying to do was take one.
For this very reason.
It’s a horrific, poetric, reckoning together.
And it made us come together.