Why do you insist there are no long term changes being made? Why do you insist nothing has changed? Your description of "ignored as usual" literally isn't happening in this case.
"All the problems of the world haven't been fixed yet? The government must not be listening, let's yell louder" is not a helpful view point.
Well, the
officer with his knee on a person's neck in seattle after the Floyd. The lack of the police reaching out to their communities and trying to actually reform their tactics for another. And especially during this time, the police (like the NYPD) are deploying cowardly and
frankly illegal acts to
attack indiscriminately.
Now, we're getting into the meat of the problem. We've always known two things.
1.) Discrimination is Harmful and Destructive to the Party it is visited on.
2.) Discrimination will most likely be apart of our society's make up with finite resources and accepted power imbalances.
Most of the western world is chanting Floyd's name. Which is outstanding. They chanted Tamir Rice's name. They chanted Freddy Grey's name. Eric Garner. Philando Castile. Alton Sterling. Akai Gurley, Terence Crutcher... This list is getting way too depressing to continue, actually.
The point is, at one time or the other, the world spoke each of their names. And the policing still happens as it does. Literally after the controversial move took Floyd's life, a cop used it on a protester.
Being Heard is not the same as being Heeded. I hear "Thoughts and Prayers" from big companies and the like, but what I take it as is "Corporate Mandated Positive P.R.". And in my cynical world, I take 'donations' as something they withdraw out of their advertising budget and itemized on their charities list for some kind of rebate during Tax Season.
Being Heeded is being invited into the discussion. Having your actual thoughts and feelings and experiences added to the discussion to help transform the future. Are we being heeded here? Will there be discussions on how to actually best fight crime and/or poverty that causes crime? Will there be movements, jobs, education reform that doesn't just slap an used band-aid on the problem so the politicians can go home and sleep well that night knowing they earned 6% more of the vote next term? Or the opposite side politicians who will just drain more and more money from an already beleaguered people and tell them to stop whining and figure it out?
We have alarmed interest. I've seen no one break ranks and actually talk to protesters. I see a lot of "You're being heard" and "You're protesting for your rights", and not any "Ok, so I got police oversight committees here, Local government, federal government, and educational supervisors. I'm glad you're with us. How are we going to accomplish any differences in this situation?"