Four years after George Floyd’s murder, we’re stuck in the reckoning-that-wasn’t

I was probably a little loopy from the anesthesia after a recent medical procedure that sent me to my couch to binge-watch bad reality TV.

But when a 2020 episode of one show popped on screen featuring a host who sported a “Black Lives Matter” T-shirt and expressed a familiar-sounding optimism about a national racial reckoning after the police killing of George Floyd, I got a little emotional over our shared fool’s hope.

It felt wistfully, naively nostalgic, the belief so many of us had in the momentum that in the four years since Floyd’s murder has taken such an about-face to have caused a nationwide case of whiplash.

Think about it. We were calling for removing funds from police departments and reallocating them to non-policing forms of public safety and community support. That’s what most activists meant when they said “defund the police.” And now many U.S. cities are giving even more money to their police departments. In Philadelphia, the latest budget increases the police department’s money for personnel by about $43 million.

And the reversals we’ve seen since 2020 aren’t just limited to police reform.

We went from corporations and companies making high-profile apologies and splashy commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion to more than 100 college scholarships put on hold or modified after Texas’ ban on DEI. Some schools are actually rebranding departments in an effort to protect programs. The campus DEI program at the University of Tennessee is now called the Division of Access and Engagement. Welcome to the newly renamed Division of Access and Opportunity at the University of Oklahoma.

Meanwhile, the U.S. House Office of Diversity and Inclusion shut down in March amid all kinds of broken promises about racial reconciliation.

A recent study by Lean In, a nonprofit that promotes women in leadership, said that Latinas have the least representation in management, but the even broader ongoing reality of post-reckonings-that-mostly-weren’t is that for Latinas and other women — especially women of color — we remain underrepresented and undervalued as ever in all kinds of spaces, from boardrooms to newsrooms and everywhere else.

How, for instance, in 2024 am I still one of too few Latina columnists at a major metropolitan newspaper, when according to census projections, Latinos will make up more than a quarter of the U.S. population by 2060?

Oh, and remember that taste of a remote work revolution? That, too, has turned into force-feeding employees the same old back-to-the-office diet. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has ordered city workers back full-time starting July 15. And, yes, some jobs can’t be done remotely, and lower-paid people don’t usually get that benefit of working from home, but even there, didn’t we once call those employees “essential workers”?

A lot of the blame goes to people in positions of power who actually had the authority to usher in change, but who we now know were mostly cosplaying at reform until the latest crisis passed and everything went back to normal — or in our current state, mostly got worse.

And that was before last week’s presidential debate and a series of U.S. Supreme Court rulings that, in quick succession, upended a 40-year-old legal precedent to weaken federal regulators, criminalized homeless people by allowing cities to ban sleeping outdoors, and determined Donald Trump has some immunity from prosecution — likely delaying the trial of the case against him on charges of plotting to subvert the 2020 election.

“With fear for our democracy, I dissent,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a portent of doom.

But then, faulting only our lackluster leaders would ignore the millions of regular citizens in this country who are not just enabling the backslide-turned-all-out backlash, but cheering it on. After watching Joe Biden’s debate performance, I don’t know if he has four more years in him. But I do know we cannot just throw our hands up and allow Trump to have another shot at kneecapping our democracy. He is unhinged and unfit to be president again — and that is not up for debate.

Progress is never linear, but at least it’s progress — not the steady regression so many of our fellow Americans are enthusiastically marching toward.

I read and watch a fair amount about Trump supporters, but one interview that stuck with me comes from a segment earlier this year on The Daily Show, where a 45 fan was asked about Trump’s contention that he’d be a “dictator for one day” if reelected.

“This country needs a dictator,” the MAGA booster replied. “I hate to say that but it’s the truth.”

That is not only not true, but it is the kind of comment made by someone who is comfortable in the protection of their privilege and in the accompanying belief that their race and gender identity and sexual and political orientation won’t make them a target of their dictator of choice. And that includes young poli-bros who think Trump is a “rebel,” and those calling for anyone but Trump to exit any stage.

In the meantime, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry says he can’t wait to be sued after pushing a new law making the Pelican State the first in the nation to require the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public school classroom.

Landry is empowered no doubt by the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that loosened interpretations of the First Amendment’s establishment clause to allow a high school football coach to pray with his team on the 50-yard line. But he’s also likely emboldened by a nation that could have chosen progress but instead chose to retreat.

It was probably fitting that the reality show I was watching when I was struck with a case of what-could-have-beens was called Catfish, which, if you haven’t watched, is about people creating false identities to lure others into outlandish situations.

Because when you think about it, the fairy tale so many of us bought into in 2020 has turned into one big national catfish. And I, for one, want a different ending than the nightmare we’re getting.