Will you still hashtag tomorrow?

"Will you still love me tomorrow?"

The Shirelles asked this question in their 1960 hit of the same name.  While they were asking about a romantic relationship, I think the question, or a variant on it, is a good one to ask.

Recently, social media celebrated "Blackout Tuesday".  People put up black squares as their avatar, passed around the hashtag #blackouttuesday, #blacklivesmatter, and other similar slogans.  (A backlash attempt, "whiteness Wednesday", backfired when K-Pop fans stormed Twitter and posted K-Pop videos with that hashtag.) 

I looked at the hashtags, and the posts, and thought, this is a good gesture, but what about tomorrow?

To call these last few weeks "convulsive" is a bit of an understatement.  We're dealing with coronavirus, a very contentious election, and now, more violence of whites against blacks, and specifically, white police officers against black suspects. 

I've heard of and seen wave after wave of protests across the country.  I know people who have participated in peaceful protests.  I have heard people say "we are sorry", "we repent," and I have heard African-Americans say, "I'm exhausted," "I'm beyond exhausted."  In our virtual lobby last Sunday, an African-American woman spoke of her feelings about recent events, and you could hear the exhaustion in her voice and see it in her demeanor. 

But people cannot march in protest forever.  No one can keep up the level of intensity that's permeated this country for the last several weeks.  Eventually, the public protests will die down and hashtags will not be trending quite as much.

What then?

What are you planning to do tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, to fight racism and other sins in our country? 

Today, the hashtag is on your Facebook and Twitter posts. 

But will you still hashtag tomorrow?

Just my .04, adjusted for inflation.