It took a pandemic infecting black Americans at three times the rate of whites, huge unemployment — also much worse for black people than for white, and one too many videos of police killing an unarmed black man, to get Americans to hit the streets at last. Black people led the way, but thanks to other people of good will, they are not alone on the street, or in this country.

People around the world are responding to the rallying cry of Black Lives Matter. Everyone is panicked by the COVID-19 crisis; everyone is terrified of the climate change crisis, which will only get worse while our attention is elsewhere; but the brutality of American racism is now something that humanity feels Americans can do something about.

Polls show that two-thirds of Americans support the BLM protests. How did that happen? It’s not like racism has been hard to see. If we needed video proof of police violence, we’ve had plenty for years. It’s been too easy for government and white people to ignore this disaster, which has devastated black Americans since they were dragged to this country in chains 400 years ago. Public attention was scattered around the minutiae of everyday life, until everyday life ground to a halt under quarantine. These days, it’s almost a relief to think about something besides COVID-19.

We are starting to make changes that we should have made 50 years ago. So far, most are symbolic. Confederate flags and statues are coming down. Institutions that maintain the power of the old slave states will be harder to pull down, like the Senate and the Electoral College, not to mention the whole system of policing and mass incarceration.

Without justice, democracy is just a farce, not a fact. America built its wealth on the forced, unpaid labor of black people. We have never given them anything in return for what we stole. In November, this country gets a chance to begin to do better. We have to try. The whole world is watching.

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