Just when you thought news couldn’t get even worse
Mere weeks ago, I was hoping for the day when COVID-19 would not monopolize the news cycle.
That, I figured, would constitute significant progress — a breakthrough ... a cause for celebration ... a chance to exhale. Finally.
So there I was on Sunday, in absolute disbelief while watching ABC World News Tonight.
The first COVID -19 story did not appear until halfway through the newscast.
A global pandemic — one that has killed more than 100,000 Americans — was rendered an afterthought by protests over racial injustice.
In March, that same program consisted entirely of COVID -related reportage.
But these are different times. Already.
For more than a week now, protests have been held throughout the United States in response to the death of a black man, George Floyd.
A Minneapolis police officer had kept his knee on the throat of Floyd, who was unarmed and in handcuffs, during the final minutes of his life.
Minneapolis, one of the last places one would ordinarily associate with racial tension, quickly became a powder keg. Riots broke out. Businesses were looted and burned.
The same sad scene has been repeated in several American cities, leading to the imposition of curfews that, judging by Monday night’s live images from New York City, are disregarded widely.
The only reminders of
COVID -19 are masks that are donned by many of the protesters and journalists — and even some of the looters and vandals.
“You have to remember what we’re in the middle of,” CNN’S Chris Cuomo said Monday night. “We’re in the middle of a pandemic.
“These bizarre scenes where people are running around on the street with no regard for law, no regard for decency, but they have masks on to protect themselves from COVID. Isn’t that odd?”
Social distancing is out the window, of course.
Abject racism isn’t in the rear-view mirror — more than a half-century after the civil rights movement.
A black president, Barack Obama, served two terms.
The United States is no longer at a point where black people are forbidden from using certain water fountains or forced to sit in the back of the bus.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a federal holiday.
Yet, despite signs of progress, there are stories about Rodney King ... Trayvon Martin ... Michael Brown ... Eric Garner ... and now, George Floyd.
You see what is happening in the U.S. and wonder, “How far has society come, really?”
“You have to wonder at what speed and direction society moves,” reader Rod Fink mused in an email.
“When I was a kid, I watched coverage of race riots interlaced with historic advances in space exploration. There was coverage of environmental issues like acid rain and air pollution. There was an energy crisis created by OPEC.
“Why is it five decades later that I watch The National or read a newspaper or a Macleans or Time magazine and the same issues are in the forefront? It’s not that the issues have been solved. Some have become deeper and more entrenched.”
It doesn’t help that the White House is occupied by Donald Trump, who posted this inflammatory tweet last week: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
When will all this stop? Peaceful protesters are being sprayed with rubber bullets and tear gas.
Billowing smoke is in the air. American newscasts keep switching locales — from Minneapolis to Atlanta to Washington to Sacramento to San Francisco to Long Beach to Grand Rapids to New York to Oakland to Dallas to ...
On Monday night, I watched live coverage on CNN for hours on end. BREAKING NEWS was locked on the screen.
Occasionally, Covid-related news would appear on the crawl along the bottom, but all the bold headlines were of the “WIDESPREAD LOOTING IN NYC BEFORE AND AFTER CURFEW” variety.
It wasn’t until just after midnight, when the eyes were bleary and the mind was weary, that CNN went to a commercial while teeing up a story on how mass protests could spread the coronavirus.
Racial injustice, prompting responses that are reminiscent of the 1960s, on top of a pandemic.
Such is the climate during this wretched year, 2020.
And we are barely into June.