
For close to two weeks now, the streets of cities across the United States have been filled with the chants of Black Lives Matter protests.
“I can’t breathe,” they yell, in reference to some of the last words spoken by unarmed black man George Floyd, who died after an officer restrained him with a knee to his neck for more than eight minutes.
Protests have spread across the world, including around Australia over the weekend.
Indigenous lives matter. Post continues below video.
But before them, a very different type of protest was taking place by those who felt disgruntled by government restrictions put in place to flatten the curve of the coronavirus pandemic.
People in the US, and yes, in major cities here in Australia too, held signs demanding their freedoms back. They wanted to get haircuts, or play golf, or in the most extreme cases believed the pandemic was created by elites to control the masses.
A month on, people are marching against police brutality and systemic racism.
LISTEN: Mamamia’s daily news podcast The Quicky.
To see photos of the different causes side-by-side is to see, well… white privilege, where the inconvenience of a global pandemic is the most pressing, dangerous or inconvenient thing you can imagine.
To protest over a haircut seems frivolous at the best of times, and in contrast to the “I can’t breathe” chanting, it puts that privilege on full display.
Anti-lockdown protests:

Top Comments
Thank you for joining the conversation. We are now disabling comments for this article.