America’s most recent valid president posted an essay on this theme yesterday.
I had to stop watching the video in the OP, because while the sentiment is OK, it’s still reifying sentiment as the answer. And it feels to me like that idea is sort of exactly the problem. It’s part of the 20th-century social contract where everyone surrenders their agency in return for material comfort (even if many people don’t want to surrender their agency, and many get stiffed on the material comfort), and “politics” is a matter of which sanitised corporate-media framing of your own existence you choose to subscribe to.
The reason corporate media is so happy to feed you tales of apocalypses, messianic leaders, historical destinies, and violence as a solution is that these fantasies disempower the audience. The propaganda genius of the regime is that it encourages you to fantasize about its overthrow; it just makes sure you fantasize about it in impotent terms. A regime that weaponises comfort does not fear violence (which is self-defeating), or messiahs and destinies (which are fairy tales), or speeches and banners (which are void). The only threat to such a regime is people taking responsibility for each other’s comfort on a boring, day-by-day level.
I think that’s the point Obama is making, albeit elliptically, and with way too many adverbs. No one needs to “become aware” of racism and police brutality, and joining a movement isn’t doing something about it. Nothing will happen because you applaud CNN for airing a feel-good monologue. The only way your rage makes a difference is if you take it to a long boring city council meeting and try to persuade the other human beings in that room to do something about the police murderers whose paychecks they sign.
