When the Protests Come to Your Doorstep
Historic protests have been carrying on outside my window for days. Here’s what that’s been like.
“If you’ve wondered what you would’ve done during slavery, the Holocaust, or Civil Rights movement…you’re doing it now.” — Aditi Juneja
Of all the books to be reading when my phone buzzed for a news alert about a police killing in Minnesota, I was reading A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. I set the book down to read the story, and watched a video that moved hundreds of thousands to action — all the way to our neighborhood in Cincinnati, Ohio. We watched George Floyd, an unarmed black man, be murdered by Derek Chauvin, a Minnesota police officer. Chauvin held Floyd’s throat under his knee while Floyd begged for air and slowly died on the street over the course of 8 minutes and 46 seconds. With the malevolent images of slavery illustrated by Douglass fresh in mind, there was clarity in what I saw in that video; a black man begging for the mercy of a white man as he was murdered in broad daylight. We witnessed the extrajudicial public execution of a black man by a white man asserting his social dominance — a lynching. The country erupted in protests all week, even causing property damage close to my home in Cincinnati. I live a few blocks from Fountain Square, the heart of…
