In the last three weeks, we have witnessed protest actions that were massive, creative, sustained, multi-racial, worldwide, and the doing of the young. What began in one city, Minneapolis, scaled up in size and across space at astonishing speed. Small towns as well as big cities were sites of marches. Across the globe people walked the walk.

The attitude of the protesters wasn’t one and done. Quite the contrary, marchers came back the next day, and then the next, and then the next. And each time the numbers increased. All of which testifies to how sickened and angry the protesters were at the cruel execution of an innocent Black man, George Floyd.

There was no trial, there was no jury, there was no rendering of an impartial verdict in a court of law. This was a lynching, modern style, in broad daylight. It was slow and heartless, nearly 8 minutes long, with Floyd pleading, “I can’t breathe.” In a different era, the killers could have been Nazis or Jim Crow vigilantes. But they were neither, merely 21st century white cops, trained in a sick culture in which Black lives don’t matter.

The only thing that didn’t enter their cold calculus in their execution of George Floyd was the immediate tsunami of protest that would flood the streets in its wake. And three weeks later, the flood hasn’t ebbed. In fact, its rising waters have toppled monuments honoring Confederate generals, cut police budgets, initiated criminal justice reform, triggered a national debate over defunding police, forced institutions of all kinds to change their practices, and more.

Unlike floods of the past, this flood shows no sign of ebbing, no sign of returning to the status quo ante. If anything, its churning waters are invading other redoubts of racist exploitation and oppression. But not quick enough to prevent yet another ruthless murder of a young Black man, Rayshard Brooks, by a white Atlanta cop last week.

Some of the outrage on the streets surely draws from a pandemic that has taken the lives of more than 114,000 people (and climbing), with the heaviest toll in communities of color, as well as triggered a deep economic crisis and laid bare an emaciated and cash starved public sector. It has also exposed the deficiencies and contradictions of U.S. capitalism.

Still, it was the cruel death of George Floyd, witnessed by tens of millions, that set into motion this largely spontaneous revolt on a scale never before seen. To say that the massive protests shook the country and the world to the bone, reconfigured politics in important ways, recast racism and anti-racism in the minds of millions, revealed mounting dangers to our democracy, and gave new urgency to the November elections contains not even a hint of overstatement.

Much has been made of incidents of rioting, looting and car burning, but these acts are, if we look at the data, no more than a footnote to the main text of peaceful demonstrations in city after city demanding racial justice. As televised footage clearly showed, if anybody “rioted,” it wasn’t the marchers, but the boys in blue, equipped with military gear, trained in a broken police culture, protected by right-wing police unions, and egged on by a racist president. If anybody crossed the line, it was these “protectors of the peace” and “guardians of public safety.” To call them an occupation army is more right than wrong, particularly in communities of color.

If the execution of George Floyd by a white cop became the opening argument for radically re-imagining public safety and criminal justice, one has to think that the out-of-control actions of too many police departments in “quelling” demonstrations was a convincing final argument for immediate and far reaching changes in policing.

But will change come? Is a radically different criminal justice system, not to mention an egalitarian society in the cards? Or will this popular upheaval end with little but cosmetic changes? Some argue that in 1968 when a similar revolt occurred, what we got wasn’t reform, but Nixon and the first signs of the resurgence and long ascendancy of right wing extremism, culminating in the election of Donald Trump in 2016.

That’s a cautionary tale for sure, but there are enough differences between now and then to think that we are at the beginning, not the end, of a long march through the criminal justice system and other institutions where racist practices have ruled the roost for much too long, provided, of course, that we thrash Trump and his Republican cohorts in November.

Briefly, here’s why I say that.

First, the county is different now. Nixon’s law and order theme and Southern strategy resonated with enough people to get him elected, not once, but twice. And the second time in a landslide against a Democratic candidate of great character and a progressive political resume. Today Trump is channeling Nixon’s law and order appeal, but it isn’t catching on, evidenced by polling that shows public sympathy for the marchers and their cause.

Second, in 1968, the progressive and radical upsurge was reaching its limits, as was the long capitalist economic expansion dating back to the end of World War II and liberal hegemony going back even further. Meanwhile, the ascendancy of the right to a dominant role in U.S. politics was only beginning. But today, in contrast, the center of political gravity across the country and in the Democratic Party is tacking in a progressive direction and the right wing, while exceedingly dangerous, shows signs of weakening. And as long as we take care of business on election day, this dynamic will continue.

Third, notwithstanding the obdurate persistence of segregation in most areas of life, the culture in which white young people have grown up is much more multi-racial than the culture of the sixties. The crossover is on a different level and Black youth set trends for the entire generation. As a consequence, anti-racism is something that white youth embrace in their gut, in their values, and in their lives. The outpouring of the young onto the streets of cities, big and small, in recent weeks is proof of that.

Finally (and most importantly), the main protagonist in this high drama of the past few weeks — young people with the notable role of Black youth and particularly young Black women — aren’t ready to exit the political stage, to get realistic, to return to the status quo ante. A few changes on the edges isn’t a bargain that they are ready to make. They aren’t exhausted. They still have plenty of energy to burn, good ideas to share, and a job to do. Three weeks ago they didn’t have any sense of their power. Now they do and there is no reason to think that they won’t wield it to re-imagine public safety and make our crisis ridden society more just and egalitarian, especially if they can avoid some of the pitfalls of the revolt of fifty years ago.

The rest of us should join them.

The fish may rot from the head, but only to begin with. Eventually the rest of the fish rots. It’s hard to imagine what 4 more years of Trump would do to the federal government and democracy.

The fact that the main architects of racism are found in high places as well as inordinately accrue the advantages in economic wealth and political power from this deeply and historically embedded system of super exploitation and oppression shouldn’t be lost sight of.

But neither should we doubt or dismiss the material and psychological advantages that white workers derive from racism as a material practice in nearly every area of social life, including their sense of superiority and earned privilege. It’s this duality that accounts for the durability of racist thinking and actions, not to mention constitutes the force field on which cross class, white supremacist political coalitions have rested, not least the Trump led white nationalist authoritarian one at the current moment.

Racist ideology is powerful and pervasive, for sure, but without its material reflection in every day life it would be difficult to sustain over the long run.

At one time I thought that racialized advantages accruing to white workers would dissolve in the face of the unifying imperatives of class struggle, class unity, and class ideology. But I was wrong.

First, racialized advantages accruing to white working people date back to the earliest days of white settler colonialism in the 17th century. During the long formation of the United States as a continental and world power in the centuries that followed, they became more embedded and pervasive. Today, they remain “facts on the ground.”

Second, white skin advantages (or privileges if you prefer) assume different forms as one racial order evolved and gave way to another in the course of contested and fierce struggles.

Third, they serve as stabilizers of the dominant political blocs and parties across time, not to mention play an essential role in deepening the exploitation of working people and the super exploitation of workers of color.

Fourth, the advantages that accrue to white workers are structured into the workplace, the neighborhood, the school, the health care and criminal justice system, and more. Conversely, the structural counterpart to white skin advantage is systematic and systemic discrimination, inequality, and disadvantage imposed on workers of color in the same social spaces.

Fifth, white working people perceive the material advantages accruing to them as natural, expected, and earned, while the subordinate and unequal status of people of color is understood by them as the result of their inferiority, indolence, and moral laxity. That their status might be the consequence of the racialized force of law, politics, economics, and legal and extra legal violence doesn’t figure in their thinking anymore than their advantages might not be the consequence of their own doing, industry, and intelligence.

Finally, the willingness of white workers to give up their racialized group advantages is neither automatic nor structurally determined by their place in the system of social production. Even in the face of a faltering economy that threatens the livelihood of all workers, there may not be such a disposition. In fact, in moments of economic and social crisis when their advantages appear to be at risk, white workers can as easily assume a defensive and self-protective posture. And in such circumstances become easy prey to right wing, racist zealots, such as Trump. This is especially so when progressive and left activists have a negligible presence in the labor movement and working class life.

As election day draws closer, and with the triple crises — health, economic, and political — still awaiting resolution and no abatement in the popular demand for radical criminal justice reform and other anti-racist measures in sight, the clash between the country’s two main political blocs — the Democratic Party-democratic coalition bloc in one case and the right wing extremist, white nationalist, authoritarian bloc, led by Trump in the other case — can only reach a fever pitch. And whatever the outcome, this clash will continue after all the votes are counted and a winner declared. And in case it needs to be said, the winning side will be advantageously positioned to remake the state, economy, and social and democratic relations in accordance with its vision. In this light, the dangers are as frightening as the possibilities are palpable, exciting, and within reach.