Page 68 - COVID-19: The Great Reset

Americans have died in police custody, but it took the killing of
George Floyd to trigger a national uprising. Therefore, it is not by

chance that this outburst of anger occurred during the pandemic
that has disproportionately affected the US African-American
community (as pointed out earlier). At the end of June 2020, the
mortality rate inflicted by COVID-19 on black Americans was 2.4

times higher than for white Americans. Simultaneously,
employment among black Americans was being decimated by the
corona crisis. This should not come as a surprise: the economic
and social divide between African Americans and white

Americans is so profound that, according to almost every metric,
black workers are disadvantaged compared to white workers. [63]
In May 2020, unemployment among African Americans stood at
16.8% (versus a national level of 13.3%), a very high level that

feeds into a phenomenon described by sociologists as
“biographical availability”: [64] the absence of full-time employment
tends to increase the participation level in social movements. We

do not know how the Black Lives Matter movement will evolve
and, if it persists, what form it will take. However, indications show
it is turning into something broader than race-specific issues. The
protests against systemic racism have led to more general calls
about economic justice and inclusiveness. This is a logical segue

to the issues of inequality addressed in the previous sub-chapter,
which also illustrates how risks interact with each other and
amplify one another.

It is important to emphasize that no situation is set in stone

and that there are no “mechanical” triggers for social unrest – it
remains an expression of a collective human dynamic and frame
of mind that is dependent upon a multitude of factors. True to the
notions of interconnectedness and complexity, outbursts of social

unrest are quintessential non-linear events that can be triggered
by a broad variety of political, economic, societal, technological
and environmental factors. They range from things as different as

economic shocks, hardship caused by extreme weather events,
racial tensions, food scarcity and even sentiments of unfairness.
All these, and more, almost always interact with each other and
create cascading effects. Therefore, specific situations of turmoil

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