If the whole state of Vermont, the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Seattle, Minneapolis, Albuquerque, Davenport, Iowa, and even Oberlin, Ohio can change the name of Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day – could Columbus, Ohio be far behind? Sadly, yes.

Following the Ameriflora controversy in 1992 – the international flower festival at Franklin Park celebrating 500 years since Christopher Columbus invaded North America – Native Americans descended on Columbus City Council playing drums and chanting. Council members refused to change the name of Columbus Day, but as an immediate concession to the victims of genocide initiated by Columbus and to make the Native Americans go away, agreed that a week starting on Columbus Day would be designated Indigenous People’s Week. But we never heard anything about that again.

Grassroots outrage and nationwide protests after Minneapolis cops murdered George Floyd have pushed much of U.S. corporate media into focusing on deadly police mistreatment of black people. The coverage is far from comprehensive on the subject of racism in the “criminal justice” system -- we’re still hearing very little about the routine violations of basic rights in courtrooms and behind bars -- yet there’s no doubt that a breakthrough has occurred. The last two weeks have opened up a lot more media space for illuminating racial cruelty.

But what about economic cruelty?

Media outlets routinely detour around reasons why African Americans and other people of color are so disproportionately poor -- and, as a result of poverty, are dying much younger than white people. The media ruts bypass confronting how the wealthy gain more wealth and large corporations reap more profits at the expense of poor and middle-income people.

With groups of young people taking over downtown Columbus, the George Floyd protests are unique in how decentralized their organization has been and how social media was used to coordinate thousands to converge on downtown.

Many groups have shared the mic and they have similar goals to completely restructure the concept of policing.

But this decentralized movement – a fundamental strategy for today’s protesters – has led some local protesters to separate themselves from others so to promote what some believe are “softened” demands to city government and Columbus police.

At warp speed many protesters soon felt they were being led by people they have never met, who are spreading a message many protesters don’t agree with.

How did the Columbus protests become co-opted by group(s) who don’t share the same vision and goals as the majority of protesters? And just exactly who are some of these group(s) who seemingly materialized out of clouds of tear gas?

In written Chinese, the word “crisis” is represented by two characters. One of these, taken alone, means “danger”. The other, by itself, means “opportunity”. A crisis nearly always leads to great change. There is a danger that this will be a change for the worse. But there also is the opportunity to change society for the better - to reform and improve it. Both paths are present in a crisis like our present one. We must strive with all our strength to make society take the right path.

Our present crisis

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is in itself a crisis, many American cities have erupted in massive protests over the senseless killing by police of yet another black man - George Floyd. The country is deeply divided. Throughout the world there have been anti-racist protests, partly in sympathy with the US protesters, and partly because racism exists in many countries.

Love is Letting Go of Fearis the title of a small book  with a big message. You can think of love and fear as sides of a coin: while the one side is dominant, the other side is negated.

In our current situation, there is a lot of fear going around concerning the COVID virus. But is it rational?

If it’s true that love and fear, light and dark, life and death are sides of a coin, we have the ability to decide which side of the coin we are going to turn up. It’s a choice. Yes, even life and death because we make choices every day that effect the quality and quantity of our life. And we can choose to NOT be afraid.

Remember the Law of Attraction: “that which is like unto itself is drawn.” What we focus our energy and attention on is what we manifest in our life.