How Long Must We Wait?

Black folk and other marginalized groups all over have asked for centuries, without a clear answer

Collage of two cropped photos: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leading a group of civil rights workers and Black Selma protesters in prayer, February 1, 1965. (BH — AP Photo); Washington Mystics’ kneel down in protest before their postponed game against the Atlanta Dream, August 26, 2020. (Stephen Gosling/NBAE/Getty Images).

It is maddeningly obvious that “the beat goes on…it’s still moving strong, on and on” in Black lives not mattering at all in the US, from Daunte Wright to Ma’Khia Bryant and Andrew Brown, Jr, and now more about the late Ronald Greene. Even with Derek Chauvin likely incarcerated for the rest of his life for murdering George Floyd. Even with prosecutors charging Daunte Wright’s killer with second-degree manslaughter. Police lethality and extralegal actions against Americans of color are everyday state-sanctioned violence, and have been so since the founding of the US.

The best legislation Congress has proffered to protect Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Asian lives includes the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and now the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Bill. The Civil Rights-era bills have gone under-enforced since the Reagan Years, and the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Right Act’s enforcement clause in its Shelby County v. Holder decision. The Till Antilynching bill stalled in the US Senate in 2020. The Floyd Act is one that reduces qualified immunity for police officers sued in civil court and gives the US Department of Justice…