I’m going to try to keep this short. The social contract that is kept in place by the laws that ‘we the people’ consented to have to apply to everyone. Equal protection before the law.
But when it becomes obvious that some laws apply to some while those same laws don’t protect others, and it is painstakingly obvious that the difference in treatment is due to the color of their skin, then the social contract doesn’t apply anymore.
If peaceful non-violent protests, since the 50’s and 60’s, didn’t result in equal protections, then what is happening today shouldn’t surprise anyone.
If the laws that should protect the rights of people of color are not respected, then it is clear that the social contract isn’t working for them. Therefore, why should they adhere to a system of laws that doesn’t afford them the protections that are implicitly there for people with a privileged skin color?
Peaceful protests were done. They tried that. The law is still applied differently. The protests morphed into louder actions… to bring attention to the fact that the social contract doesn’t work for them. When there are two bodies to a contract, and one side’s terms are freely enforced and protected while the other side must constantly fight for their terms to be respected, in a court that heavily favors the first party, then the other party to the contract will wise up to the fact that the court is not being fair. So why continue the facade of playing by its rules?
The social contract has to work for everyone… or it won’t work for anyone. And yeah that sucks for the innocents who are caught in between during this modern civil war, being fought on the streets and on our mobile screens. But the peaceful conversations were tried, and instead they were answered with warrantless intrusion on properties, chasing down an unarmed person, and kneeling on a person’s neck. And people of color died in each case.
Something radical must happen… something like: don’t make a class of people feel inferior before the law, because then the law stops meaning anything except that it is a canopy of shade that the privileged can hide under while everyone else has to suffer the storms of inequality.
The Maverick Candidate 