We Have to Demand an End to the Social Order That Led to George Floyd’s Murder
At times of widespread misery, a single incident of blatant injustice can cause enormous, unexpected outrage — outrage that then fuels far wider protests and more radical demands. This is exactly what we’ve seen across the United States since George Floyd’s murder.
Demonstrators hold up their arms during a protest sparked by the death of George Floyd while in police custody on May 29, 2020 in Oakland, California.Justin Sullivan / Getty
When an already suffering, dispossessed, angry population pleads for justice and receives instead more repression and disrespect, things have a tendency to explode.
In the eighteenth century, France’s King Louis XVI threatened to use the army to subdue unrest among diverse groups angry about his proposed land tax. This response backfired. Combined with widespread discontent and a famine, protests quickly went beyond anger at the tax and combusted into the French Revolution of 1789. Within a few years, the flames of Revolution swept away the Bourbon monarchy, and its king died on the guillotine.
In early 1917, the Russian tsar called in the army to quell protests of women and striking factory workers demanding bread, but this only inflamed hungry protesters and encouraged revolt across the country. By the end of 1918, Tsar Nicholas II was executed at the hands of the new Soviet government.
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