I remember about a week into quarantine, when pictures started to come out of deer sitting at bus stops and empty streets of New York City. All over the world, everyone was in quarantine and we were watching Italy and every day the death toll would go up. And I remember feeling brave and also astonished that for the first time in my lifetime, everyone in the world was experiencing the same exact thing. And I remember feeling connected with everyone around me. After going through such a long period of time of divisiveness with our elections and our politics, and for once, for one moment, for one hour, for one week, it seemed like we were all in this together.
And we were all just human and afraid for our families, for our future. That’s what I remember. Matt and the George Floyd murders. I wonder sometimes. The world responded in a way that they never had before to police killings of black men. What was different this time, and the only thing I can think of, is we had all suffered through an oppression. An oppressive period of being in quarantine. And I think there were people who experienced oppression who never had before.
And somehow that induced the outrage that the world had after George Floyd’s murder. And again, that was the time when we were Unity, and then it all went down.
