Why these protests are different

There have been uprisings against police brutality and racism before, but this is the country at its exasperation point.

Americans have come out nightly in nearly every US city to demonstrate for the past week. They’ve been attacked by police, tear-gassed, and arrested, and have marched shoulder to shoulder amid a deadly pandemic. Their demand: an end to racism, police brutality, and the attitudes and policies that allow both to exist.

We have seen uprisings over racism and police brutality before, the most famous being the civil rights movement of...