It really was such a tragically wasted opportunity.

There was plenty of support, too, for meaningful change. Almost unbelievable levels of support. See, for instance, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/06/29/us-police-reform-poll-finds-support-more-training-transparency/3259628001/

You don’t get 80+% agreement on anything, not even “do you want ice cream” (53%, https://news.baskinrobbins.com/news/releases-20170822-6630280) or probably even “the sky is blue”.

And we had it! Not for every worthwhile change, but at least for some things that would really help! (There is a track record of them helping!)

Blaming it on “white America” doubling down to “support police brutality” is a complete misreading of what happened. Of course there were some different perceptions of the issue (same article goes through some), but how did that end up with the country abandoning/ignoring wildly popular measures that would make a major difference?

I still don’t entirely understand what went wrong.