Plenty happened as a direct result of the protests. There was a brief moment of solidarity where everyone had a perspective to share about racial (and other types of) bias and discrimination, in turn sparking a cultural shift toward better inclusion and equity efforts. Police brutality and excessive force were thrown into a much bigger spotlight, and reasonable districts made positive sweeping changes (shoutout to Illinois’s SAFE-T Act). Those months of protests pressured prosecutors to up the charges of the officers involved with murder charges appropriate to the situation, instead of third-degree murder and involuntary manslaughter.

There were some people that felt threatened by all this, so they cranked up the propaganda machine (with help from their Russian compatriots) in a desperate effort to bury it, gain traction, and build up enough power to undo everything. To say that nothing happened because of the protests, to oversimplify it down to “just a bunch of looting and riots,” to characterize the movement as “radical left-wing/antifa terrorism,” are those false narratives they’re so desperate to promote.

Protests work. And they know it. They’re terrified of it.