{"id":4112,"date":"2020-08-24T15:12:58","date_gmt":"2020-08-24T15:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adhc.lib.ua.edu\/pandemicbook\/?page_id=4112"},"modified":"2021-11-13T14:59:36","modified_gmt":"2021-11-13T14:59:36","slug":"08-24","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/adhc.lib.ua.edu\/pandemicbook\/08-24\/","title":{"rendered":"08-24"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Monday, August 24<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUS Cases 5.74 million
US Deaths 177,425<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Aug 23: Protests erupt in Kenosha, Wisconsin after police officers shot a Black man<\/a>. A video of the incident was posted online, showing officers appearing to shoot the man, identified as Jacob Blake, several times in the back at close range as his children watched. The Republican National Convention begins<\/a>. The FDA issues an Emergency Use Authorization<\/a> for convalescent plasma as a potential promising Covid-19 treatment.\u00a0 President Trump\u00a0calls<\/a>\u00a0the treatment a \u201cpowerful therapy\u201d with an \u201cincredible rate of success,\u201d a statement that draws some\u00a0criticism<\/a>\u00a0from experts who claim that the treatment might be mildly helpful but has not been rigorously tested or proven safe. Other experts\u00a0argue<\/a> that the treatment is \u201clargely a continuation of the status quo\u201d for convalescent plasma. Fires continue<\/a> in California.<\/p>

Aug 24:\u00a0 \u00a0The CDC restricts its testing recommendations to only symptomatic individuals who have been exposed to the virus, reportedly due to pressure<\/a>\u00a0from the White House.\u00a0\u00a0The CDC recommends\u00a0that doctors should restrict COVID-19 testing to only those who exhibit symptoms<\/a>\u00a0after being exposed to the virus, excluding asymptomatic and possibly infectious persons with the disease. According to\u00a0Politico<\/a>, the quietly released new guidance was the result of political pressure from the White House. Fauci disagrees with the guidance. After it is revealed the decision had bypassed CDC\u2019s usual scientific review process and without\u00a0internal review<\/a>, the changes are reversed. A global, multicenter study finds that the antiviral drug remdesivir had little effect on patients\u00a0hospitalized with COVID-19<\/a>. The findings, published in\u00a0JAMA<\/em>, indicate there were no significant differences in duration of supplemental oxygen or hospitalization between the intervention group given remdesivir and the control group given standard care.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tFrom the Cutting Room Floor ...\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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After reading the article by John McWhorter[1]<\/a>,\u00a0<\/span>I spend the evening watching the video files on Greg Doucette\u2019s Google Doc, tracing all reported police violence associated with the BLM protests. He began the list under three months ago, and it\u2019s now up to more than 850 instances.<\/span>[2]<\/a> I also scroll through the subreddit \u201cr\/2020policebrutality\u201d\u2014it goes on for thousands of entries.<\/span>[3]<\/a> One hour goes by. Two. After two and a half, I can\u2019t take any more images of men (and it\u2019s almost always male cops) chasing, beating, and spraying people. And for what? I know the counterarguments: you don\u2019t see enough, they were resisting arrest, they disobeyed an order and so on. But no cop seems ever under any real threat during video after video. I can\u2019t find more than an instance or two of anyone doing anything but throwing a bottle of water or a teargas canister that the cops fired in the first place. Most of the time, name calling by protesters receives a physical beating or spraying. Sometimes, it appears that merely showing a press badge is enough to get pepper sprayed or worse. These videos look very much like what international news has been showing out of Hong Kong these last two years, or Prague in 1968 or Budapest in 1956.<\/span>[4]<\/a><\/p>

[read_more id=”1″ more=”Read more” less=”Read less”]<\/p>

There is so much old anger and trauma in this nation. The police believe that history has proven the protestors to be thugs and terrorists. The protestors believe that history has proven the police to be murderers and fascists. I struggle to see how we can ever loosen the hold of this grief and fury whose power traps us in an unending, ever-repeating, yesterday. We are prisoners of our past, which, in the words of Michael Ignatieff, is not past.[5]<\/a><\/span><\/p>

The violence has not stopped since George Floyd was murdered thirteen weeks ago. Last night in Kenosha, a crowd assembled in the immediate wake of Jacob Blake being carted away by an ambulance. Protests against police brutality started up almost instantly. Then the frustration seemed to boil over. A fire broke out in a dump truck. An empty lodge meeting hall burned. Today, the protests are spreading to other cities. In many cities, the BLM protests had not stopped since George Floyd\u2019s death. In Portland, Oregon, for instance, protests continue. Right-winged counterprotesters and militias have replaced the federal troops, often driving their trucks into protesters, Trump flags flying behind their pick-ups. This weekend, a street brawl occurred between men carrying the Blue Lives Matter flag and Black Lives Matter protesters. Police issued a \u201cdo it again and we\u2019ll issue a warning\u201d warning. The police who are sworn to \u201cserve and protect\u201d look away or simply are absent.[6]<\/a><\/span><\/p>

Maybe McWhorter is right, then, but in a twisted way. Maybe bigotry is not a necessary condition of police violence. Maybe the clubbing and spraying is just going to happen as soon as you give a person a badge, a club, and pepper spray. Because to everyone armed with a hammer\u2026.<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

Notes<\/p>

[1]<\/a> John McWhorter, \u201cRacist Police Violence Reconsidered,\u201d Quillette<\/em> (blog), June 11, 2020, https:\/\/quillette.com\/2020\/06\/11\/racist-police-violence-reconsidered\/<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>

[2]<\/a> https:\/\/docs.google.com\/spreadsheets\/u\/1\/d\/1YmZeSxpz52qT-10tkCjWOwOGkQqle7Wd1P7ZM1wMW0E\/htmlview?pru=AAABcql6DI8*mIHYeMnoj9XWUp3Svb_KZA<\/a><\/span><\/p>

[3]<\/a> https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/2020PoliceBrutality\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>

[4]<\/a> Preeti Jha, \u201cFive Flashpoints in Hong Kong\u2019s Year of Anger,\u201d BBC News<\/em>, August 31, 2020, sec. China, https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-asia-china-53942295<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>

[5]<\/a> Michael Ignatieff, \u201cThe Nightmare From Which We Are Trying To Awake,\u201d in The Warrior\u2019s Honor: Ethnic War and the Modern Conscience<\/em> (London: Chatto and Windus, 1998), 166\u201390.<\/span><\/p>

[6]<\/a> Helier Cheung and Christopher Giles, \u201cWere Triads Involved in Hong Kong Violence?,\u201d BBC News<\/em>, July 22, 2019, sec. China, https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-asia-china-49071502<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>

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“Shooting of Jacob Blake sparks protests in Wisconsin,” CTV News, August 24, 2020, https:\/\/youtu.be\/NS5cSwVEyDg<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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*If the pdf thumbnails are not appearing, please reload the page.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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