[PHIL 101 - 8] Cops, Climate, COVID

Given what these authors have stated, I think addressing the most pressing issues of our day is a hard task, but not impossible. Given that systemic racism, islamophobia, police brutality, and climate change are already issues, the addition of COVID to the list seemed to bring out the worst sides of each of these problems. How you might ask? Well everyone is sitting at home, quarantined, and watching the news. 

People now can see for themselves everything that goes on. The murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless other lives- it suddenly came to awareness on a massive scale. While fighting police brutality and racism in the UD, Roy talks about the police brutality and islamophobia that goes on in India that seems to mirror almost perfectly what is happening in the US. 

Now that everyone is at home watching the news, when would be a better time to start addressing these issues? But it's not that easy given how false and misleading the news can be at times. So if we can't rely on the news to address these issues, how do we?

This is where the 'we' question comes into play. 'We' is in reference to everyone else- everyone who wants to address these issues. 'We' is Arundhati Roy, Olufemi Taiwo, and anyone else trying to address an issue. How? Roy and Taiwo cater to their strong suits- writing informative articles that are backed up with good sources. During the summer when the black lives matter protests were starting up, many people on the app TikTok starting bringing awareness to police brutality and systemic racism and how it is very real and a real problem. Those people's strong suits were these minute videos. They are part of 'we'. 

But that isn't enough- anyone could easily call a "fake news" on any one of these people. The 'how' needs to be more efficient. 'We' need to cite our sources, check our statistics, and read our articles/check our videos in the lens of devil's advocate. 'We' can't leave any room for error- no place for doubt. 

However, we must remember that not everyone will accept facts even if it's placed on a silver platter. 

To give a humorous example- a group of flat earthers bought a $20,000 laser gyroscope to prove that the Earth doesn't actually rotate. Well, the laser picked up the 15 degree per hour drift angle that, in the end, actually does prove that the Earth rotates. Long story short, they disregarded that evidence and concluded that they have other experiments to disprove that the Earth is round. 

In this case, sometimes you just can't convince the ignorant.