NOTE: I do not wish to criticize the recent protest – I am only concerned about the International consequences of the coronavirus due to any large gatherings. I was wrong to include the BLM protesters as a part social gathering, as social gatherings are those who are party-goers and aggregates of non-mask wearers. In short, I sincerely apologize any offence done due to my usage of language that seems to be ignorantly racist. I do not understand the systemic racism and I do not support racism. My complaint is on 1) the years of white hypocrisies and 2) the “actual” social gatherings as redefined above that are a real threat to the International Communities that cannot afford to say “No” to the US if they asked us to open the border before they have their virus situation under control. For a revised/added clarification, see IV: Inconsistencies and White Hypocrisies. (each section has been somewhat modified as of July 6th)
Prologue
It is June 14th, 2020. Now, I am sure that the title of this essay alone would make people feel offended and uncomfortable as well as enraged by the mere implication of the adumbration that you are in fact wrong. But I humbly ask my readers to set aside for any judgments until you have read this till the end and given a proper and appropriate thought to it because while I claim you are wrong, I do not believe you are stupid. Furthermore, this is not a sweeping generalization about white people but a rational observation about white people as a tribal movement. I also want to make this clear before I begin that I am not speaking of the matter at hand as a political statement. I am rather critiquing what is a steady social movement, which began as a seemingly innocuous act of traditional liberalism.[1] It is a philosophical treatise in its core, not a political discourse. In this, I follow the examples of Socrates, Francis Bacon and insights of Nietzsche. “If one has trained one’s eye to detect the symptoms of decline,” continues Nietzsche, “one also understands morality… Morality denies life.”[2] Just as he was compelled to speak out, the philosopher must be the evil conscience of his age. It seems that over the decade, liberals have taken a wrong turn and became self-enlightened, blurring a distinction between liberals and radical lefts. They neither conceal their good nor their evil, but they have thrown off all shame and they have become the very thing they had despised of becoming. I say this, because I have lived through the change and put up with their inconsistencies. Yes, I grew up in this tumultuous time, and to that extent, I too am a decadent. The only difference between them and I, other than the different types of self-imposed identities, is that I recognized the change and I have struggled against the populist rhetoric. Just as Socrates was tried and executed by making sense, as a philosopher and a historian, I feel obliged to tell you that I know that I do not know. It is in accordance with this sacred philosophical tradition that I am about to tell you that you need to recognize that you do not know that you do not know. Just as medical practitioners take the Hippocratic oath, I too have taken the Socratic oath to question when I endeavoured to practice philosophy. To get on with the claims made by, what I used to think of as, my fellow self-proclaimed liberals and leftists, is to betray that oath I made. It is not only contrary to the essence of philosophical discipline maintained for over millennia, but also dangerous to the future of philosophy as such. Once again, I say this in line with the prominent philosophers in the past: the philosopher must be the evil conscience of his age.[3] Let me now proceed with the enquiries necessary to flesh out the blissful ignorance the liberal fundamentalists[4] so endearingly embrace.
I: The Facts and the Surroundings
It is important to briefly explain the current state of affairs. For without it, even though this essay is not a political discourse, my view would be eschewed as one of many fanciful philosophical enterprises. It is June 14th, 2020, as I have indicated at the beginning of this essay. This fact is significant, as we are in the middle of a pandemic. At the end of 2019, an infectious disease named COVID-19, a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began to spread from Wuhan, China. The epicenter of this outbreak soon moved from Asia to Europe, then onto the North America. On March 11th, 2020, World Health Organization announced it as a pandemic by the alarming levels of spread and severity.[5] The current status of its confirmed cases is 7,751,747 with the total death toll of 429,062 and still rising with 188 countries and regions affected.[6] Amidst the acceleration of globalization, each country has taken drastic measures to shut down the borders and put restrictions on travellers. Domestically as well, countries took decisive measures to ensure the public health. The approaches taken by each country differed from country to country. The International consensus is that it is best to social distance and wear masks whenever you are with other people, reducing the risks of transmission of the virus. One of the most problematic features of this disease is that its incubation period is about 14 days and some who carry the virus may not show any symptoms, thus unknowingly infecting others. This was of a great concern to the health experts as this mysterious virus affects the most vulnerable at a higher risk. In particular, the elderly and those who already suffer from various illnesses are deemed most vulnerable to death. In addition, countries with diverse ethnicities put those who are black and who belong to other minority backgrounds at a greater disadvantage. The systemic racism embedded in the Western civilization disproportionately influenced the black population in all over the world. As European countries began to impose a lockdown on the society to prevent medical care systems from collapsing, restaurants and all non-essential businesses were closed indefinitely. Needless to say, this further disadvantaged those who suffered from the already existing systemic racism as well as those who lost their income. The United Kingdom, at first, regarded this virus as non-threatening and refused to put a lockdown in favour of economic growth, only to change its course after the hospitalization of its prime minister, Boris Johnson, who got infected with this virus. By the beginning of March, virtually most countries imposed a lockdown or similar restrictions, seeing that a temporary lockdown would better slow down the spread of the virus and bring back the economic growth in a long-run. The United States of America, however, continued to prioritize the economic momentum despite having declared the national emergency on March 13th – 2 days after WHO declared the coronavirus as a pandemic. President Trump had downplayed the virus for over months, assuring the public that everything was under control. The Trump Administration kept ignoring the advice from the health experts and never issued a lockdown, leaving each state to decide what to do. The majority of the states imposed some forms of lockdown, since the Federal Government would not do so. As of March 8th, the total confirmed cases in the U.S. was about 500 with 22 deaths, but a month later on April 8th, the numbers went up to over 430,000 reported cases with 14,000 deaths. Even well into April, President Trump insisted the economy must be prioritized and criticized the states that imposed stay-at-home orders. As of June 14th, 2020, the U.S. ranks the top most infected country with 2,071,782 confirmed cases and 115,347 deaths.[7] This was the result of on-going mishandling of the situation, encouraging its citizens to hold public events and signaling that the virus is well under control by the president himself, refusing to wear masks in public gatherings. Still, many tried to remain to be cautious and minimized the human contacts, facing the reality of the rising cases.
Amidst this chaotic situation, states began to lift the stay-at-home orders in late April, pressured by the right-wing white people insisting that they would rather die free than in isolation at home. President Trump’s tweets to liberate people from stay-at-home orders did not help. This lifting of the restrictions further contributed to the increase in number of deaths and hospitalization. It was during this chaos that a black American, George Floyd, was killed by the law enforcement on May 25th, 2020. The act of this heinous police brutality was caught on video and it went viral. This long over-due frustration and anger against the systemic racism in the U.S. was further fuelled by the energy cooped up during the months of home confinement and the nationwide protests against the systemic racism ensued. The fact that many people had been laid off and did not have an access to the health care system as well as the recent nationwide lifting of stay-at-home order certainly contributed the large gathering in public to protest. This call for justice resonated with the people suffering from the similar racism towards the minorities all over the world, resulting in a global protest in the midst of a pandemic.
II: The Idols of the Tribe
I must admit that being Japanese and growing up in Japan, I do not have the lived experience of what it is like to be a black person living in the United States. I only superficially know that the systemic racism exists but I do not understand it. I believe the protest itself is justifiable and it is a noble enough cause that I can understand that people want to show up on the streets even in the midst of a pandemic. I also understand that people want to prioritize rectifying the issue caused and maintained by the white supremacist ideals on which the United States still stand, over the real possibility of infecting each other during the protests. After all, it is true that the black people are disproportionately affected and killed by this virus.[8] Without addressing the issue of the systemic racism, the most vulnerable during the pandemic remains to be the black people who are deprived of the kind of privileges that white people enjoy, such as an access to the health care system. It seems then that it is a natural progression of affairs that the protests are happening now rather than later. For those who are systemically ostracized, it truly is a cause worth fighting for, even if they may contract the virus during the protests. After all, they have literally nothing to lose.
However, the picture of what is happening now is not entirely clear. Above all, we must keep in mind that we are in the midst of a pandemic, that is, it is not a domestic issue but it has grave International consequences, whose virus may or may not show symptoms up to 14 days after the infection. This means anyone who shows up in the protests[9] can and most likely will get infected and transmit the virus to the others who are also vulnerable. In fact, in the last 2 weeks, the confirmed cases of the virus rose by 20 percent in the United States.[10] I can assure you that in a matter of two weeks, the U.S. will be reverting back to the insurmountable confirmed cases and death tolls due to COVID-19 and there would be less reporting on the protests.[11] In short, we must first and foremost acknowledge the fact that the protesters as well as those who are irresponsibly social gathering for no particular reason are risking not only their own lives but also others around them. By extension, as the rest of the world is slowly opening up their borders, once the International flights resume, anyone protesting or having large gatherings in the United States is necessarily putting people living outside the U.S. at risk. In other words, the domestic affair, however historical, is no longer domestic but the protesters need to be fully aware that they are putting people who do not share the same history as the Western civilization and its own problem of the systemic racism at risk. This is even more so when they claim they are protesting because they care about people. Although relevant enough, this is somewhat beside the point I am trying to make. The most disturbing thing that has become more and more apparent is the inherent contradiction and the sense of entitlement white people began to demonstrate throughout this tumultuous period in the matter of 6-month. It is more difficult to tackle this issue I have personally experienced for the last 20 years, since I would need to analyze the context in which the inconsistencies happened with solid examples. The reason I decided to speak up now is precisely because the last 6-month is a summation of everything I fought against: sophistic languages to promote their agenda without a shred of regard to what these white liberals had held until 6 months ago. Let me elaborate what I mean. First of all, I see on the social media the postings of articles on police brutality against the black people, public shaming of people who do not agree with their views, and the pressure to support the social gatherings [party and beach-goers and the like] during a pandemic in the country that has the most infected cases and that has consistently acted most irresponsibly. These are mostly posted by white people, who had long benefited from the systemic racism the most. Yet they have the nerve to preach and chastise anyone who raises a medical concern about their own negligence on tackling the issue of 400 years of the systemic racism while they themselves never even brought it up as a serious problem with the similar level of enthusiasm when they would talk about feminist issues or equal right for LGBTQ communities. Rarely do I see, if ever, the aggressive postings by black people but only by white people who suddenly decided that it was good to be supportive of the black communities. Just as God, who suddenly saw the world he has created to be “good,” in Genesis. I have seen white people posting things like “why did we let this [the systemic racism] continue this long?” To which I would like to respond by saying, “I don’t know. Maybe because you were more interested in playing Nintendo Switch until the day George Floyd was killed and it incited a large-scale protest?” Once again, if this is a simply domestic and the Western issue, I fully support the righteous cause and I would not be meddling with what I do not fully comprehend, other than that it is inhumane and wrong – the systemic racism, that is. Amidst the pandemic, the situation is a little different. In short, it has International consequences, possibly killing people who have nothing to do with the Western systemic racism. Imagine Japanese people asking you to fight for the reform of workplace ethics (which has produced so many suicides over the years) and asking you to actively involve or donate to Japanese organizations or else you are racist. Or the Free Tibetan Cause or women’s rights in Middle East as well as Sudanese genocide, to list a few. I can be positive, from how white people have been behaving, that they would never call themselves racists even if these oppressed people are appealing to the International communities, and that mostly means the U.S. intervention. This is not to say that these protests should not happen (although it certainly may sound like it). I am raising a public health concern at an International scale and asking them to be at least considerate of this fact. This is a difficult thing to ask to the people who have suffered racial injustice for so long, but I am not asking the black people to be considerate (although it would help). I am asking the white people who claim themselves as liberals and leftists to be humbler in their approaches. In short, stop calling people racists just because you woke up to find the viral video and suddenly decided to voice your opinion. At least I would like them to check their bookshelves before speaking out. How many books on black or American history that you have read from cover to cover do you have? These white liberals post articles in support of protests from home, while they themselves do not directly participate in the protests because they are either too lazy to do so or too afraid of catching the virus. Some just donate money and feel good about themselves. One example that illustrate their revisionist approach may be seen by looking at the case I am more familiar with. They do not realize that the Japanese constitution was drafted by the Americans so Japan could not engage in combats. So legally speaking, all Japan can do is “assistance” in form of either financial aids [donation] or send out Self-Defense Force to aid the local people in a war zone who are injured or who do not have enough food. Yet, Americans have since 1947 [2 years after they drafted the constitution] complained and pressuring, criticizing Japan’s lack of involvement militarily. Japan was often criticized by only giving financial aids without sacrificing its own citizens, as if the US had forgotten that it was they who made it impossible for the Japanese to have a military and aid our allies in a form of military intervention. They criticize other countries for not being vocal enough, when it is the mess they themselves have created and have done nothing to rectify the problem until something shocking surfaces on the Internet after 400 year! Surely, they could have done something to make a substantial change to abolish the systemic racism, but they chose not to do it. In the meanwhile, Japan went through from Edo period, Meiji Restoration, Imperial Japan and abolished the imperialistic attitudes. Why is it so difficult for a country with a relatively short history to make a change? These white liberals never before posted any articles on racial injustice or vocalized until the black people began to protest. All they did was regurgitating the articles someone read as if they take credits for them, and dehumanize others who do not “like” their posts. Yet, white people have the guts and audacity to tell others to respect the black lives. They never before even raised a concern or showed an interest in solving the problem of the systemic racism. I know this because I have lived with them and I have seen how they spent their time, watching Netflix all day long rather than writing letters or emails to local government to make amendments to racial injustice. Now all of the sudden, they tell you to support the cause or they will unfriend you. In fact, I have been unfriended by a white educated American female whom I had a high respect for by raising the inconsistency the white people seem to be having. Once again, I cannot stress this enough but I am raising this concern only because we are living in the midst of the pandemic. Keep this in mind throughout this essay. My black friends have never insisted that the others join or support the cause as aggressively as white people have, and they have done so only for the last few weeks after the shocking video went viral. They insist that we support their cause at the risk of spreading the viruses abroad, as if they had always been enthusiastic advocates of the black communities. The first thing these white liberals place in our hands is a magnifying glass: they direct us to look through the problem they had long been the part of, until we no longer are able to see anything but what suddenly interested them, everything growing bigger and bigger. Micro-aggression is one example. Ethics is NOT a mathematical formula – contexts and interactions with the people matter. This type of thought police and censorship is directly in contradiction to “democratic values” we used to hold as liberals. To recognize what is harmful as harmful, to be able to deny oneself what is harmful, carries with it a sign of youth and vitality as well as a sense of entitlement because although “[i]llness itself can be a stimulus to life but one must be healthy [and wealthy] enough for such a stimulus!”[12] They indeed behave just like the geographer in The Little Prince, always curious and interested in supporting new noble causes but never does he ever explore or reflect upon his own deeds until triggered or being made aware of by some external causes. When I question why they suddenly spoke up against a cause on which they had previously almost never voiced their opinion, they tell me, “a change happens incrementally and it does not happen overnight,” as if they had known all along everything about how to bring about a change. Of course, a change does not happen overnight. But if they knew that, why did they do nothing until now? After all, you had 400 years. What are you talking about? It is as though they had just come to an internal realization that this or that cause matters, after having played Nintendo Switch for years, and insisted me to fight for the cause. If I raise a concern, they would deem me as their enemy. There is a sense of white entitlement to be able to suddenly say “This is what I stand for (and not Nintendo Switch I have been playing up until now), and if you are not with me, then you are against me.” Is this not the kind of rhetoric that exactly caused the systemic racism? I am just asking. The white liberals must think their history is the only thing that should matter and in order to believe in it, they are willing to ignore their own mistakes and negligence and blame others for them. This is exactly what deteriorated and finally led the Roman Empire to fall. “Ah, I just prayed for Christian God and we won the war – now I have reached an enlightenment that Christianity is the true religion, so everyone must follow me.” It is as if I broke my teacher’s precious mug cup, and I would ask you to go apologize with me. If you refuse, I am not your friend anymore. The white people appear to think as if the Western civilization is the only tree from which all the branches (in the form of races and countries) stem, and the white people are the leaves in the tree who see themselves as stationed at the forefront of the life. They need to recognize the fact that there are countries whose histories do not entirely overlap with theirs, however. Just because our histories may intersect, as when Japan was influenced by the West, it does not mean we automatically share the history of enslaving black people, advocating for white supremacy. They must believe that the history is linear and derives from the Bible and everyone else is a degenerate of Adam and Eve, separated by languages. The very act they are doing is truly a representation of racism. They think they can rewrite their history according to their needs. The systemic racism happened because the white people made it happen and it is still on-going specifically because they have not spoken out voraciously enough to rectify their own mistakes. If they knew it would take time to make a change, why did they not actively engage in it prior to this May? Yes, they waited until the pandemic happened to act, and they now demand others do the same as if the rest of us lives at the mercy of their white privilege and their sense of entitlement. In fact, the white liberals have fallen into the idols of the tribes, who have “once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it,” even if “there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these [they] either neglect and despise, or else by some distinction set aside and reject; in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusion may remain inviolable.”[13] The white people must acknowledge the fact that the rest of us do not belong to their genealogy and that just because our histories intersect it does not mean we share their sins. I can only speak with authority from a perspective of being Japanese, but we do have our own creation account and we do not have a history of systemic racism in the same way as the term ‘systemic racism’ is used in the West. To demand help from others who had nothing to do with their mistakes in their own history during the pandemic and to further accuse us of being racists for not conforming to whatever values the white liberals find fascinating at any given moment when our lives are at stake is simply insulting and speaks loudly about how they think they are entitled enough to call upon others to take care of the mess they have created (and neglected). While the cause itself is worthy of a collective action, a collective action during the pandemic necessarily means we are being asked to sacrifice our lives to take care of the mess we do not share in our history. It would be a different story if this cry for help were coming from the black communities. But as far as I can see, the black people are busy fighting for their lives, while white people are whining and complaining about why other people would not join them. Instead of commanding us to listen to them and obey them, I would be asking for help in the following manner in the midst of a pandemic: “We are really sorry that we have not taken care of the mess we have created in our society, but this is really important to us, and we would appreciate it if you could support us even at the midst of a pandemic.” The way white people have been behaving is exactly how Francis Bacon describes human beings as: “men, having a delight in such vanities, mark the events where they are fulfilled, but where they fail, though this happen much oftener, neglect and pass them by. But with far more subtlety does this mischief insinuate itself into philosophy and the sciences… it is peculiar and perpetual error of the human intellect to be more moved and excited by affirmatives than by negatives; whereas it ought properly to hold itself indifferently disposed towards both alike.”[14] In other words, the white people have not changed at all since the time of Francis Bacon. They are acting in the exactly same manner as Europeans would act as described by a white privileged man in the 16th century. Congratulations.
III: White Privilege, Lack of Responsibility and Individual Fundamentalism
“I am willing to die for this cause,” many white people have told me in the past few weeks since the protest against the systemic racism started. To those of you, self-claimed white liberals, I wish to ask with all due respect, “Are you, really, though?” If you have been so devoted to this cause to the extent that you are willing to die either by police brutality or by contracting the coronavirus, what were you doing before May 25th, 2020? Another white American person said to me, “I’d rather die in freedom than being afraid and confined in my home,” referencing to the coronavirus, saying that she would rather fly to Japan to be with her husband. While I understand the sentiment, please do not come to Japan now. Do you not see that by exercising your freedom, you are putting other people in danger? Nietzsche was quick to point out that “there is always anarchy among the atoms, disaggregation of the will, – in moral terms: ‘freedom of the individual,’ – extended into a political theory ‘equal rights for all.’… Everywhere paralysis, distress, and numbness, or hostility and chaos both striking one with ever increasing force the higher the forms of organization are into which one ascends. The whole no longer lives at all: it is composed, reckoned up, artificial, a fictitious thing.”[15] Fighting for equal rights is good, but social network media are flooded with white people posting angrily how racial injustice is still ongoing, as if they had forgotten that it was they who maintained the systemic racism. When they are high-jacking the cause all of the sudden, because it would make them look good, they began adding to Black Lives Matter other elements of social injustice of their choice that have also been neglected, what they are doing is appropriating the protest for Black Lives Matter and dominating the ‘movement,’ making it ever more confusing what the protest really is about. They want to defund the police? Why not? They want to march for LGBTQ community? Sure. Let us muddy the water more! The protesters in Hong Kong had specific demands to be fulfilled and wanted the authorities to listened to, while Black Lives Matter protesters have yet to give us any specific demands other than abstract concepts like “abolition of racial injustice” or “defunding the police” neither of which has any consensus or specificity that any governors can really band-wagon. Do white people know what they want? Where is their manifest? When will the protest be done? Until all forms of systemic racism is done away with? Does each and every single one of the protesters know how many things to dismantle? Or is this going to be a protest with emotional burst that slowly subside after having seen some semblance of changes? I beg you, please give me the specific list of things you want them reformed. The white liberals have once again turned the cause that belonged to the black people into their own liking. In fact, the white supremacists and the white liberals have come to mean essentially the same thing in this regard. They have become the police for what should be accepted and what should not. They decide the discourse of universe and only they can change the course of the future with the help from the black communities, rather than aiding the black communities. The white liberals are suddenly enlightened, no longer interested in Nintendo Switch they were playing until recently, and they took over the social discourse on what needs to be addressed. They have once again made it in-your-face racism in such degrading levels, except that it’s all done with a wink, as Susan J. Douglas says in her book on feminism.[16] It is understood that it is racist and elitist to exclude any under-represented minority groups. This is the knowing wink: “white people are so racist and dumb – so we, the white people, will help you spread the awareness on police brutality against the black people. While on it, let us include the other marginalized communities in the protest and we should together make our world a better place!” We all know that it is bad to be a racist; therefore, it is okay to add more agenda to the cause that they deem to be (more) important.
Such a digression from the main cause and appropriation of the opportunity for black people to raise their voice would only further obfuscate the reason why this protest started to begin with. In fact, this is not the first time that white people felt entitled to appropriate wisdom of others to hide their arrogant ignorance. Being Japanese and having lived in Canada for ten years, whenever I wear a mask out of consideration for others, the Westerners never missed a chance to mock Japanese people via me for always wearing masks, telling me, “It’s scientifically proven that wearing masks don’t actually work. You know that, right?” They would often tell me with an air of arrogance. It was always said so matter-of-factly that I never bothered to ask them for the scientific proof they so often proudly spoke of. Yet, after the coronavirus surged, it is those very same white people who started to chastise each other as well as Asians for not wearing a mask. There have been instances in both the North America and England amongst other countries that people with Asian background have been told to “Go back to China with your coronavirus!” and these incidents often resulted in the Asian looking persons getting beaten up, as if that would solve anything.[17] How is that NOT racism? Why assume everyone with an Asian looking person must be Chinese? It reminded me of the time when I was on my way to school, coming out of Guy-Concordia station in Montreal, an elderly white person always stands in cold winter, giving out fliers to support “Free Tibetan” cause – except it was all written in Chinese. So I refused to take the flier because I could not read it and it would just be a waste of paper. Yet, he insisted, “take it!” To which I responded, “No, it’s okay. I can’t read Chinese.” He then continued, “You can’t? Why not?” and I responded “Because I am not Chinese.” He then stood in shock for a second or two, until he said “…Then, what are you?” For someone who apparently cared for a cause that is about Asian issue, he could not even entertain the idea that there are other Asians than Chinese. Sure, this is an isolated incident and by no means “systemic” but you get my point. Even after the WHO’s declaration of coronavirus as a pandemic, I saw many racial slurs against the Asian population and white people proudly saying “How blissfully ignorant Asians are to think that wearing masks would have any effect whatsoever!” It was only in April that white people recognized the importance of wearing masks as they kept hearing it on the news by the medical experts and now the very same white liberals are telling others to wear masks that they had previously dismissed it as superstition. Did they suddenly completely forget what they had been saying for the last two decades? Because I remember being told that I must be ignorant to wear a mask when catching a cold by white people who are liberally minded so many times. So much so that I often felt ashamed to wear masks in front of white people. I started to take off masks when outside but only wore them inside the house since they automatically assumed I would be a stereotypical Japanese who knew nothing about the science. Whatever has happened to their “scientific proof,” I wonder? The privileged white liberals have been acting as though they were the only ones that mattered at least since around 2012, when I started hearing them getting excited about censoring certain words singlehandedly as they believed those words would offend the people in the minority groups. I was told that you cannot say “I see your point,” to indicate that you have grasped the concept because it is offensive to those who are blind; hence, it is a micro-aggression, they said. There are so many things that are wrong about this. To begin with, the expression “to see one’s point” has nothing to do with the physical viewing of atoms and particles but it comes from the concept often invoked in the ancient Greek philosophy (and elsewhere) and it means to see with one’s mind’s eye – hence, “to understand” or “to grasp a concept.” Besides, it is impossible to physically see one’s point as there is nothing physical to see there. I call these white privileged people liberal or individual fundamentalists, since they only take a word in its literal meaning according to their own subjective interpretation, just as the Catholics used to say that the Eucharist is not symbolic but it is the body and blood of Jesus Christ literally that you are consuming at church. Now, even though their official website clearly states that the Eucharist is not metaphorical but literal, most Catholics believe that it is meant to be metaphorical. But do they not know that it was made into an article of faith in 1215 and if they suggested the otherwise, they would go to hell? Those who know that history did not begin at the beginning of the Western colonization would immediately recognize that Thomas Aquinas and other medieval thinkers spent tremendous amount of time and effort to try and explain this phenomenon called transubstantiation, in which the bread and the wine appear to be bread and wine but upon the proclamation by the priest, the substance of which turns into the actual flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. This is why Christians were often made fun of by the Muslims because they would ingest the very god they worshipped, only to be excreted. I mention this issue here because this interpretation of the holy scripture eventually caused the British Civil War during the age of Reformation onwards. This is why fundamentalism is dangerous. It accepts no boundaries and no pluralities of ideas but only the literal meaning of the word without any contexts whatsoever. Another reason why these individual fundamentalists are at the same time white privileged people is that they actually do not talk with the blind people in arriving at this conclusion that to say “I see your point” is in fact offensive, nor do they invite physically disabled people to a conference even within the department when the conference is about raising awareness of physically disadvantaged non-white people! I asked, out of curiosity, one of my friends who is blind if he gets offended when somebody uses the phrase, “I see your point,” to mean she understands the concept. He laughed at me for asking him such a blatantly stupid question and told me that he himself says it all the time. To this, white people’s response was “he can say that because he is blind,” again taking my question too literally and thus missing the point. They say they want to be inclusive, while their deeds are clearly exclusive to the point that they do not even care about what blind people actually feel. Ethics is not mathematics. One cannot make a universal rule out of a particular case.
IV: Inconsistencies and White Hypocrisies (and the US Government)
This section is added and edited on June 27th onwards up until July 6th, when the various news media are now re-focusing on the coronavirus as the International communities slowly begin to open their borders. It has been almost 2 weeks since I wrote the rest of the sections in this essay and what I have been cautioning from at least mid-March has been finally getting recognized and reported and I am seeing people posting about the danger of COVID-19 again. The White House Coronavirus Task Force reassembled for the first time since April, although they have much explanation and more work to do after the abandonment of public health. This is despite the fact that the medical experts had been warning not to hasten opening up the business, so they were fully being warned of the danger from both inside and outside the country. Since this section is newly inserted, I would like to take this opportunity to also address the misunderstanding my writing has caused many others, leading them to respond to me emotionally. As an outsider from the Western systemic racism, I do not yet comprehend what the systemic racism really is – I probably never will no matter how much I read about it, because I did not grow up in the same environment. However, I would like to mention here that the systemic racism in any form and in any country is to be condemned and with specific to the movement happening now, I do support the cause and I do say that black lives do matter. At the same time, however, I feel I am unqualified to have a strong opinion on this matter, because I am just realizing how inhumane the police brutality is especially against the people of colour and if I were to suddenly say “if you do not support black lives matter movement, you are my enemy,” I would fall into the same category as those who hold inconsistencies and hypocrisies without apperceiving cognitive dissonance on their part. For this reason, I will stop short by saying black lives matter and the systemic racism needs to be eradicated so people of all social or cultural, religious or racial backgrounds are treated with equal respect. The reason I did not voice this issue in the other sections (written on June 14th) was because this is to me such a common sense that need not to be spelt out – like washing hands or wearing clothes. But as Aristotle said it correctly, democracy is a rule by uninformed people and hence is a worse form of the government. I just had no idea to what degree uninformed-ness could extend.
In this section, I would specifically explain the reasons 1) why I wrote this when I did and 2) why I chose the protesters as an example of spreading the virus. The latter has been clarified already, I hope. I was ignorant of this part of the history and I had no idea how deeply offensive to use this protest as an example (though I still do think my friends in the North America and the society had the moral obligation to speak about such an issue to immigrants and foreign students if it is such a controversial issue beyond gun control or healthcare, by at least having books on black history on their bookshelves, for instance). The former is a little more complicated but there is a reason for why I wrote this now and not any other time in the past. This has a lot to do with the International power dynamics, so to that extent, my reason for raising a concern is somewhat political and personal at the same time. But this particular concern for the spread of COVID-19 is not political but medical from the International perspective. Please do not misread or misinterpret this sentence. The virus is of a medical concern. Whether it becomes political or not is up to a country’s policy – but as the objective truth, the infectious diseases know no politics. It spreads without intentionality or consciousness to everyone equally when you put aside the political and societal complication in a domestic level. I hope this part is clear. Especially for Americans, it may be difficult to separate the two issues now. However, at least in theory, as you have been taught at school and heard from family doctors, I would presume that you understand that I mean the spread of the virus from the basic medical perspective.
Now, as I have mentioned, as an Asian person, for the last 20 years since I came into contact with Europeans and Americans, Japanese people as well as I were ridiculed with a demeaning tone just for wearing a mask. This suddenly changed especially after the U.S. began to have a surge and the spike of the coronavirus cases in April. In short, gradually from last December, but suddenly in April, as if they had just reached an enlightenment, they suddenly started to call non-mask wearers as anti-scientific and stupid – which is 180-degree different from what they had been saying for many decades, calling us stupid for saving their lives. This is not just inconsistency but also a hypocrisy. You are being inconsistent when you hold two contradictory views in arguments, but you are hypocrites when you subvert your previously held position and ignore (does not acknowledge that you were wrong) and proceed to attack people on the basis of newly acquired information simply because they just were convinced otherwise, even though the scientific evidence was right in front of their eyes all along – people were wearing and encouraged to wear masks even during the Spanish Flu in 1918. The reason why I am so concerned about the huge spike in the U.S. with regard to COVID-19 is that they still do not take this seriously when they see a surge at an alarming speed, thus harnessing the virus; while young people who get infected may or may not show symptoms, they are the best mediators to spread the virus to the vulnerable. Many studies show that one single person infected can spread the virus to multiple people. This is a scientific fact. For this reason, anyone who says protesters are safe and are “less likely” to spread the virus does not make any sense. Even more so, when the recent studies began to emerge that this virus may be airborne.[18] It is like a choice being given to either participate a war that has a 90% mortality rate or join a war that has 30% mortality rate. And this example is not even taking infectious part in consideration! Sure, you would rather choose, if those are the only options available, to take your chance with joining the war with a lower percentage of mortality rate. You just do not know if you are included in that 30% or not until the war has ended. What worries me most is the fact that once the U.S. demands International travels to resume to countries that are not self-subsistent. Japan, for instance, cannot afford to refuse the U.S.’s demand to open up the border if asked. For example, the reason why Japan sent Self-Defense Force (SDF) to Iraq War in 2003 was only because of the pressure the U.S. was giving us. In order to convince the Japanese nation that it is lawful to deploy SDF, then Prime Minister Koizumi tried his best to find a loop hole in the law delineated in the constitution. SDF can be, according to the constitution, deployed as long as they would not engage in a combat within the parts of Asia. Nobody knew if Iraq was in Asia – it is in the Middle East but if it is in the Middle East, it is East of Europe. If it is to be included in Asia, it should have been named the Middle West instead. But the government, upon the pressure from the Bush Administration, eventually dismissed the constitution (or re-interpreted it so that it would not offend the U.S.). The Japanese government gave the following reasons for deploying SDF: 1) They are deploying SDF to a safe area of Iraq and thus it is less likely that they would get into a situation where they would have to engage in a combat, and when that situation happens, SDF would immediately retreat without engaging in combat. 2) SDF is deployed to Iraq only to offer medical supplies and food shortages to those citizens in Iraq who were the victims of the war. And finally, 3) Iraq is a part of Asia. Soon after the deployment of SDF, three freelance journalists went into Iraq to report the situations and to tell us what really is happening and if Iraq is, as the government says, indeed safe. They were captured by a terrorist group and Japan received a video tape with the ransom, showing the three captives in ISIS style, demanding to withdraw SDF within 72 hours, or else they will be killed. This was the first war related incident since the World War II. Luckily, Japanese government was able to locate their whereabouts and rescued them unharmed. However, in the next following years, many more Japanese journalists were held captive and they were not so fortunate. It became a news so long as they were alive but once they were decapitated, Japanese media stopped reporting these cases.
The U.S. drafted and wrote into our constitution that Japan must not be able to possess their own military and engage in a war combat at the end of World War II. Instead, the U.S. will have its bases in Japan to protect Japan from foreign invasion. It sounds nice, right? What many people do not seem to understand is that the U.S. wanted Japan not to have the military force so it would not be able to be a threat to the U.S., but also because and primarily, if and when a war breaks out in Asia, between China and the U.S., for instance, the U.S. can use Japan as the battlefield instead of its own mainland. It is economical since the U.S. does not need to spend money on a missile that can reach Asia with such precision that it would hit the target in an Asian country. Further, it would not have to worry about supplies. Most importantly, the U.S. would not have to sacrifice their own citizens and go berserk in Japan, obliterating Japanese citizens under the name of maintaining world peace and justice. The tension the Trump Administration is creating within Asian countries is not certainly helping. Another largely neglected but important issue is that the U.S. soldiers, especially in Okinawa, have been raping Japanese women all the time. But since even if they raped someone in off-duty at a local Japanese bar, the U.S. had forced Japan to agree to the treaty that any crimes committed by the U.S. soldiers stationed in Japan would be subjected to be tried on the U.S. Martial Court and Japan cannot prosecute the U.S. personnel. As a result, the soldiers who were charged with rape and murder were often given “warnings” or “suspended from duty” without any jail time. Once again, neither the Japanese government nor the U.S. government nor media reports these cases. Given the history, just like other smaller countries, Japan knows we cannot afford to refuse the U.S.’s demands and if they demand Japan open its border to the U.S., unlike the European Unions, we would have no choice but accept the U.S. citizens into our country.
When the majority of the U.S. states ignored the medical experts and opened up their business and people are irresponsibly going out and having social gatherings at bars and restaurants, beaches and theme parks, saying “we are not afraid of COVID-19 because we are young,” while beating up Asian people for “fear of getting infected” is an inconsistency and hypocrisy. Saying that the protesters are safe and less likely to spread the virus defies the common-sense about how the virus works.[19] While it may be true that the protesters are more careful and not the main reason for the spike in the COVID-19 cases so far, it is a hypocrisy to say that it does not have any significant effect. Many people had to die who did not have to because of the rhetoric of “safe” and “less likely” – even at the war time as we have seen, which is not infectious, this rhetoric proved to be false. So how come can people still keep saying that an infectious disease is “safe” and “less likely” to spread when the police are not wearing masks and constantly tear gassing the protesters to make them cough? This is an inconsistency and hypocrisy that could endanger other people’s lives all around the world. When do Americans and white progressives learn this? Activism is by definition present-oriented. Philosophy is by definition future-oriented. Historians are by definition past-oriented. This is why they do not mix well. Philosophers are often bashed and exiled and executed by the activists, only for the historians to see that the philosophers had a point. But as a historian of philosophy, I must point out what happened in the past and what their consequences were as well as what could happen in the future if we let the activists and radical progressives take their course without keeping them in check. Just as Gov. Cuomo of NY said eloquently on the coronavirus briefing on July 6th, “somehow COVID has become a political issue, which I have never heard of a virus becoming political, but in this environment, it has, but if you deny the problem, you will never solve it.”[20]
Let me now reiterate what I have been voicing since at least March so you can see the consistency on my part. I have voiced and spoken against the following issues with the sole concern for the danger of underestimating this novel coronavirus that we know nothing about.
I had consistently been critical of the way the Trump Administration downplayed and handled this virus, when WHO declared it a pandemic. On the same time, President Trump suddenly revised his previous view and announced from the oval office to recall all Americans from European countries without any specific plans of quarantines.[21] The travel ban would come into effect at midnight on March 14, leaving less than 72 hours for the Americans to come back to the United States. This resulted in the 8-12 hours wait at the airport in a packed situation in places like JFK and Chicago O’Hare Airport, while no one was wearing masks. After arriving at the hub International airports in the US, the American citizens went their way back to wherever they came from, using the domestic airlines without any quarantines.
In the last week of March, many governors put state-wide restrictions on stay-at-home orders due to the increasing number of COVID cases. It was on April 15th when the first anti-lockdown protest led by the right-wing conservatives was held. They of course did not wear masks or care about social distancing.[22] Instead, they turned it into a political statement that the state was trying to restrict the freedom to exercise their rights to go outside, with many carrying guns to promote their own agenda that the lockdown was not constitutionally justified and that it was also intended to take away their 2nd amendment to bear arms for the reasons no sane persons could understand.
By the Memorial Day Weekend festivities, starting at May 25th, most of the states had lifted the stay-at-home orders as anti-lockdown protesters and the pressure from the Federal government weighed on them, completely defying the CDC guidelines to re-open the business.[23] Young people went out and partied outside and inside, further contributing to the spread of the virus, whose data would only come to be known in early July.
On the same day on May 25th, George Floyd was mercilessly killed by the law enforcement and the video that captured the scene went viral, angering the liberals who had been cautioning people not to go outside and ridiculing the anti-lockdown protesters. Hence, the protests began nationwide, starting from May 26th, essentially contradicting what the liberals had been warning – until May 25th, they wore masks, kept social distancing and chastised those who went outside for no good reason. However, starting May 26th, the very same people began going outside as this was a protest with a good reason.[24] During this time, I remained consistent and raised a concern for the public health at the midst of the pandemic. While I was not against the protest, as it was a noble cause, I wished the protesters to have recognized what they were doing, i.e. putting other people Internationally at risk. I would also have liked to see them to acknowledge the contradictory behaviours. For however a righteous cause their protest was, they were going outside without much social distancing in many large cities. A virus is a virus. Whether you are outside for a good reason or for a bad reason, it infects. After all, in such packed protests, masks do not really work as they would have to eat and drink and many were screaming, while the police would not wear masks and used tear gas to prompt the protesters to cough droplets of the virus. It is a common-sense. Yet, none of them wanted to admit or had the guts to raise a concern. By them choosing to go to protests, they said they were being careful and wearing masks. However, the message was crystal clear. Even the CDC guidelines, medical experts, or state-wide lockdown would not stop them, arguing that their cause was more important than the lives of the vulnerable who would get infected.[25] While I would like to also talk more about the irresponsible party-goers and beach-goers as well, literally I have not to this date [July 6th] been able to find any single article or pictures of those alleged party-goers and larger social gatherers that these individual fundamentalists kept speaking of. There is literally no article published as far as I can find since the protest began up until June 23rd, when the media began re-focusing on the spike of the coronavirus. Just as if these individual fundamentalists had been anticipating, an article claiming that the protesters were not the cause of the spike in the coronavirus on June 24th, as I have posted the link to the article on footnote 7. The only problem is that the article is comparing the data from April to a non-existent data of June protesters that it makes absolutely no sense. At this point, they acted exactly with the same logic as the anti-lockdown protesters, whether or not they liked to admit. Indeed, some states still did have lockdown in place until as late as June 12th. In this manner, just as the party goers, the protesters too need to be held accountable and they need to say what they mean and imply: “We care more about us looking good than killing millions of people, including our own.” [added on between June 27th and July 6th]
V: Concluding Remarks: Fantasies of Power
Three weeks into the protest and the lifting of the restrictions during the midst of the pandemic, more and more Americans were out protesting or partying, ignoring social distancing. What good does it do if the majority of black people are dying because of this very protest to fight for their lives? The U.S. has been notorious for neglecting to inform the public the danger and the severity of this deadly virus that is still mutating. We do not have the vaccine for this virus yet and the medical experts say we would not have a vaccine available to the public for over a year. Yet, instead of sticking to the cause, white liberals are adding more and more demands on the list while black people are still disproportionately dying from the coronavirus more than from the racial injustice.[26] Just as the enlightened sexism, the key component of enlightened racism is irony. Irony offers the fantasy of power.[27] White people in America who show up at the protests or incessantly post articles supporting the protests upon feeling the sudden remorse or guilt and have an urge to protect black lives (because they are tired of staying at home) may feel a certain sense of achievement. They can now feel superior just by participating the protests without thinking much ahead. In whatever fashion they behave, as long as they remain asymptomatic, at least they themselves feel safe and thus they can secure a sense of superiority over those who are being cautious because of the coronavirus. What they do not still realize is that they may be exposing the most vulnerable, including the black people in the communities, to the deadly coronavirus. After all, they are the firm believers that masks do not work. They seem to be wearing masks now to create at least a semblance of solidarity or consideration for others. They are acting as if they are immune to the virus for whatever the pseudo-scientific reasons they have fabricated once again. But they will get infected – the number of hospitalizations after the lifting of stay-at-home order consistently shows that no matter how careful you are and social distancing, there will be deaths before they can change anything. The mayor of Atlanta is right, so are other medical experts such as Dr. Anthony Fauci. If they want to make a change in the system, they should go to vote on every chance they get. Realistically speaking, however hypocritical white liberal individualists are, they will be the key demography to winning their voice in the upcoming election. At this rate, however, come November, the majority of the protesters (as well as those who are out partying) will have contracted the viruses and they will either have died or have been hospitalized at the time of the election. Then, the morbid irony may become true: changes are made by those who show up, but they cannot show up due to the influence of the coronavirus. The ones who can show up will be the ones who are staying at home now, and they are not going to make a change, simply because they can already afford to work from home and they have a lot to lose by going out. I am not saying that the protest should not happen. I understand that the protest is especially important for black people to the point of actually sacrificing their own lives, unlike those white liberals who can choose what is important to care for on any given day. I am raising a concern only because this is no longer just clearing up white people’s mess. The U.S. being the most hazardous place to be in right now, once the International travel resumes, they are putting the lives of all the International communities around the world on the scale. If that happens, white liberals have some serious explaining to do. They will not only be responsible for the existing systemic racism but also be held accountable for willfully ignorant mass-killing of those who did not commit the crimes the white people have been continuing to commit to this day. So please, I implore you, white privileged people, to protest responsibly and with a strategy. Put another way, they must be ready to be held accountable for a possible war crime – they themselves unwittingly moving around as bio-chemical weapons.
[1] The West Wing S3E0; this is the episode in which Joshua Lyman defines liberalism as acceptance of plurality of ideas, which unfortunately is no longer the case.
[2] Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Case of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. Preface.
[3] Ibid.
[4] I use the term “liberal fundamentalism” to mean more or less “individualism gone too far.” To that extent, the term can mean “Individual fundamentalism” (= a belief that a subjective, transient individual conviction acts as if their sacred ‘manifest’ that can be re-written at any given moment, trumping over the freedom of others)
[5] See WHO official website at https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/27-04-2020-who-timeline—covid-19
(accessed on June 14th, 2020).
[6] This data is as of June 14th, 7:33 am in JST. https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
[7] Ibid.
[8] This goes the same, at least in the United States, for pregnant women, the elderly whose immune system has been deteriorated and complicated as well as those who have reconditions, loosely speaking.
[9] Now, people have been arguing that those who are protesting has 1) less likely to get infected and spread the virus to a passer-by, not to mention flight attendants and people who need to travel abroad for business, and that 2) people who are not protesting but who just hang out at bars are more likely to spread the virus. People who have suggested that it should be obvious that this is the case when I look at the issue from a point of view of medical anthropology but with all due respect, I call it a bull-shit. Why? Two reasons. First, because virus is epidemiology first and fore-most and it is bio-chemical before it is meddled with medical anthropology that is embedded in political institution. Viruses and infectious diseases have existed since the creatures sprang up before even a society or institution was established. The virus is prior to social injustice because in literal sense it does not care politics and if some people are more vulnerable due to institutional, systemic racism adapted by the relevant countries, that does not justify the claim that virus and politics are inseparable. Yes, it is unfortunate that medial anthropology plays a huge role in disproportionately affecting those who are ostracized, but the fact remains that virus has no intention and it does not discriminate certain oppressed races or marginalized people who have less favourable treatment, not to mention their income is low to be able to afford the appropriate health care. But it is a grave mistake, and I say this with medical experts all over the world, to conflate the two just because we are living in the society that embraces the systemic racism. One must, at least in theory, differentiate the two as distinct problem, even in current political climate it is difficult to do so. Second reason I have a hard time grasping the issue – this relates to the hypocrisies and inconsistencies – is that when we are talking about infectious disease, the distinction between “less likely to spread the virus” and “more likely to spread the virus” is simply a non-sequitur. And what is worse, those who advocate this view knows it. This is supported by a plentiful of medical anthropology and simply by how infectious disease spread, After all, the US has one person with the COVID-19 symptoms with no death reported in January, while by the beginning in June, that one person (because the government did not respond well) went up to over 2,000,000 confirmed cases. In other words, the North Americans are the most very proof that what they are saying is inconsistent. This is a common-sense in the rest of the world.
[10] Unfortunately, the US media are busy reporting about what is happening with the protest for BLM that they have neglected reporting or even talking about COVID-19.
[11] As I am editing this piece, it did not take 2 weeks – by June 23rd, most media and articles began publishing on the COVID increase, though these are not related to BLM but more from the data collected in April and early May. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/06/23/coronavirus-live-updates-us/
https://en.as.com/en/2020/06/23/latest_news/1592863839_888004.html
[12] Nietzsche, p9.
[13] Bacon, Francis. “The New Organon” in The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy: Selected Readings. p51.
[14] Ibid, p. 51.
[15] Nietzsche, p.13.
[16] Douglas J., Susan. The Rise of Enlightened Sexism: How Pop Culture Took Us from Girl Power to Girls Gone Wild. P.13.
[17] There are so many instances but these are some of the earlier ones. https://metro.co.uk/2020/02/23/woman-knocked-defending-chinese-friend-racist-coronavirus-attack-12286814/ and https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/20/us/coronavirus-racist-attacks-against-asian-americans/index.html
[18] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/07/06/covid-19-coronavirus-spreads-airborne-transmission-experts-say/5383598002/ (accessed, July 6th 2020)
[19] https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/06/24/883017035/what-contact-tracing-may-tell-about-cluster-spread-of-the-coronavirus People started to post this article as soon as it came out on June 24th as if it is a vindication of their claim that the “protesters are not the cause of the spread of the virus” – once again, this claim itself does not make sense if you know the most basic medicine every child knows. This is around the same time when the media began focusing on the spike on the coronavirus since June 23rd. This article then is a response to the much-anticipated blame-game the individual fundamentalists had been waiting for. However, let me make this clear: IT IS TOO EARLY TO TELL!!! The data showing the recent spike was caused by the anti-lockdown protesters and other party goers in April just came to be available in early July. Of course, there is no datum available to conclusively show that if the protesters were to be blamed for the recent spike! Furthermore, especially in light of NY Mayor De Blasio’s order not to ask the contact tracers if the people who came into test for COVID had been to a protest complicates the real number. https://www.thecity.nyc/coronavirus/2020/6/14/21290963/nyc-covid-19-trackers-skipping-floyd-protest-questions-even-amid-fears-of-new-wave
[20] See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg-ewEjA8kc, where he spoke, “Outbreak anywhere is outbreak everywhere – that’s the new mentality we have to have… We have had significant clusters, where people came from out of state, they came in, they attended our function, Bang! The next day, we have an increase in the infections… If the virus is increasing anywhere it’s gonna travel here and we are going to have a problem. Denying COVID is really advancing the COVID virus…. I know this is a politically charged environment right now. And somehow COVID has become a political issue, which I have never heard of a virus becoming political, but in this environment, it has, but if you deny a problem, then you will never solve it – We are not the United States of Denial… If we do not as a nation acknowledge COVID viral increase, it is going to continue. Those upward numbers don’t change on their own. They only change only when you change them. That number keeps going up unless you bend the curve – the bend doesn’t happen naturally. The bend happens when people change their behaviour and actually reduce the transmission rate.”
[21] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/12/trump-bans-travel-from-europe-here-what-you-need-to-know.html
[22] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/30/michigan-protests-coronavirus-lockdown-armed-capitol
[23] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/25/americans-defy-covid-19-social-distancing-rules-to-celebrate-memorial-day-holiday
[24] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/timeline-george-floyd-protests-200610194807385.html
[25] https://www.businessinsider.com/us-map-stay-at-home-orders-lockdowns-2020-3
[26] The mayor of Atlanta City, Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms warns the protesters that “there is still a pandemic in America that’s killing black and brown people at higher numbers.” https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-testing-george-floyd-protests-20200531-owndbzws3fhrzelbmlxe6jrd6q-story.html
[27] Douglas, 14.
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