It's been over six weeks since United States added "Widespread Civil Unrest" to the list of everything else going wrong with the year 2020. I personally chose to reduce my workshop activities and make time to read up on some things that were left out of my school history textbooks. There were a lot of important events missing! I was a good student that paid attention and did well in tests, but that only covered what was in the book.

On the national stage, I'm glad to see this wasn't "just another thing" getting brushed aside (as much as some people in positions of leadership tried) but the majority of immediate positive response are just symbolic gestures. Painting "Black Lives Matter" across a street won't do anything to actually make Black lives matter.

But that doesn't mean such symbolic gestures are useless. They set a low bar that is easy to clear, a basic floor for discussion on how we can move forward. When that fails to establish common ground, when that becomes controversial, it is really informative. If people can't even agree on the basic premise that Black lives matter, it really lowers the chances we can have productive discussion on how to provide liberty and justice for all. If some people aren't even willing to support symbolic gestures, how will they react to real and meaningful changes?

And real and meaningful changes will be required, because ignoring all the underlying problems won't make them go away. The bad news is that real change takes time, meaning it's too early to declare either victory or success. There are a lot of policy decisions, legislation either enacted or revoked, and court decisions made, before we can point to any real change in direction. And that is far too slow to be noticeable in this age of instant gratification and fleeting social media exposure, so we'll just have to wait and see. But as long as people hold on to hope for a better society where Black lives do matter, change is possible.

Notes from workshop tinkering will resume tomorrow, starting with previously scheduled backlog.