How to Think About the "Failures" of the George Floyd Protests

As it's been more than three years since the largest protest movement of my life, I've had plenty of time to reflect on why nothing really happened in response, save a smattering of tepid reforms.  This reflection has been greatly aided by others writing at length about their own theories.  Some are cautiously optimistic about the future, others are more critical about the state of social justice movements, and others (appear to) fall somewhere in the middle.  The common thread among most such reflections is that they focus on the movement itself and the people that make up the movement.  While self-critiques are good and necessary, I feel that this overwhelming focus misses the mark in an important way.

What helped to spur this specific realization was a pair of investigations that were released back-to-back last week.  The first provided additional detail into CBP's involvement in quashing the protests:

"The agency is generally authorized to operate within 100 miles of land and coastal borders, though that remit can be extended. On June 26, 2020, then-President Donald Trump issued an executive order directing numerous agencies — including the Department of Homeland Security, CBP’s parent agency — to provide assistance for “the protection of Federal monuments, memorials, statues, or property” amid the mass protests. 

The documents reveal that CBP officers provided “situational awareness” for police departments, conducted “general law enforcement activities” and “crowd control,” monitored encrypted online chat rooms, and even arrested protesters."

The second showed how activist energy and dollars were funneled into an anti-racist celebrity's vanity project that, as far as I can tell, did next to nothing:

"But several former staff and faculty members, expressing anger and bitterness, said the cause of the center’s problems were  unrealistic expectations fueled by the rapid infusion of money, initial excitement, and pressure to produce too much, too fast, even as there were hiring delays due to the pandemic. Others blamed Dr. Kendi, himself, for what they described as an imperious leadership style. And they questioned both the center’s stewardship of grants and its productivity.

“Commensurate to the amount of cash and donations taken in, the outputs were minuscule,” said Saida U. Grundy, a Boston University sociology professor and feminist scholar who was once affiliated with the center."

How these seemingly disparate stories relate to each other is that they both demonstrate how larger, systemic forces appear to have precluded any chance of the protests "succeeding," at least in the short-term.  Our law enforcement apparatus, perhaps the most efficient counter-insurgency machine ever created, polices our streets with ruthless ferocity.  Our system of higher education, richer and more expansive than any such body in existence, does the work of policing thought, and helps direct a good deal of potential radical energy towards toothless grifters and charlatans.  We can blame ourselves all we want, but as I've remarked on before, this misses the point and plays directly into the enemies' hands.  Any analysis that is not centered on the durable, well-constructed machinery intent on continuing to suppress human flourishing is simply not useful towards our ultimate goals.