On the Night of Curfew

Living in 2020 feels like playing a year-long advent calendar, and it’s both historic and overwhelming. We lost Kobe. COVID. Economic recession and stock crash. Record unemployment. Businesses adjusting to shelter-in-place/WFH. 100,000 deaths. Backing out of WHO. Protest against social-distancing and mask-wearing. Commercial space travel. Amy Cooper and George Floyd. Another wave of nation-wide protests and riots. 

There is almost no time to celebrate wins or feel sad. There is just a lot to feel.

Since Monday, peaceful protests took place across many American cities. Then protests turned into riots and looting. Not all protesters are rioters. And probably not all rioters share the same political pursuits as the protesters. But there is one thing the two groups have in common: they feel the pain of the lack of equity and little hope. 

Tear gas deployed. National guards called upon. Curfews implemented. Fear felt.

Suppression can restore temporary peace but never cures anger. Anger only resolves when the underlying triggers are resolved. This wave of protests and riots culminates the systematic racial injustice, the ever widening wealth gap between the haves and the have-nots, and the draining economic impacts of COVID disproportionately on those already been marginalized. 

Many of us are living through the first curfew in our lifetime, and restoring peace is most urgent for communities under distress. However, we must remove what’s dividing us to truly feel a sense of belonging. Don’t let the commotion distract us from the real issues at hand: people need hope, and need their government and leaders to act before it’s too late.

P.s. Rioters are not characterized by their race. Rather, rioters are characterized by the hopelessness they experience and therefore the recklessness they manifest. I do not support riot nor violence. However, when people have nothing to lose, it is understandable that there is no fear of consequences. As we condemn the act of riot and looting, we should move beyond attributing the wrongdoing as solely the failure of individual character, and look into the root cause - the failure of a larger system - of this hopelessness.