Does the police shooting of Jacob Blake mark a turning point in the current social unrest?

This appeared in The Millennial Source

On Sunday, August 23, a confrontation with police in Kenosha, Wisconsin resulted in a 29-year-old Black man, Jacob Blake, being shot seven times by a white officer. As has become common with such events in the United States, video of the shooting appeared online and rapidly circulated.

Anger arose as the public learned Blake was unarmed and the shooting happened in front of his three young children. For many in the Black community and beyond, the shooting was yet another example of police overreach, akin to the 2020 deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, though Blake is currently alive.

In the days after the shooting, protests and riots have broken out as they did following the death of Floyd, itself reminiscent of the police killing of Eric Garner in 2014. This pattern of police action and public outrage has also enlivened the perennial politicized debate over the Black Lives Matter movement and police violence.

This repetition of violence against Black people and social upheaval may feel like the nation is stuck in a ceaseless loop, but there are indications — both positive and negative — that the situation is reaching a tipping point.