The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. This week’s issue is written by Damien Cave and Isabella Kwai, reporters in the Australia bureau who have both covered issues of race and identity.

       Damien Cave: So Isabella, the United States seems to be exploding with more than a week of protests and unrest after a Minneapolis police officer killed a black man named George Floyd by kneeling on his neck for more than eight minutes. Like a lot of people, especially as an American, I’m heartbroken and just trying to keep up. Are there any especially useful conversations that you’re seeing emerge?

       Isabella Kwai: Beyond the horror and heartbreak, I’m seeing a deep well of anger, defiance and frustration. As black people everywhere in the world are pointing out, their community has suffered police brutality and racial discrimination for decades, and the Black Lives Matter movement began after the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who fatally shot black teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012. The question: Why is much of the world paying attention now? And what does it mean for those who weren’t?

       Damien: “Enough is enough” and “I’m tired” are clearly common refrains. One of the videos from this week that really stuck with me captured three black men of different ages — a teenager, man in his 30s, and another who is 45 — arguing about how to stand up and what to do when the same horrors keep happening.

       Nikole Hannah-Jones, a New York Times reporter who just won a Pulitzer for a project about the legacy of 1619 — the year the first slaves arrived in America — also touched on this. On Twitter, she wrote: “I keep feeling like I should be writing something but the cycle of police killings and black grief and rage is so regular I’ve already written the same story several times.” Then she linked to a piece from 2016 entitled “The Grief That White Americans Can’t Share.”

       Isabella: Many black writers and activists are also speaking up about the exhausting emotional burden of explaining how to be less racist. The capacity to treat racism as a learning exercise instead of living it is a privilege, they note. Instead, they’re pointing to an extensive body of writing and films — from James Baldwin to Ta-Nehisi Coates — that explore the experience of injustice that resonates to this day. Our staff have suggested works to consume that confront racism.

       Latest Updates: George Floyd Protests

       4h ago

       Scenes from protests around the country.

       4h ago

       New York police arrest deliveryman and de Blasio intervenes.

       5h ago

       L.A. police chief meets with protesters and apologizes.

       See more updates

       Damien: Here’s an interesting detail on the rush to self-education: “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism,” by Robin DiAngelo and “How to Be an Antiracist” by Ibram Kendi were at the top of Amazon.com’s best-seller list on Monday.

       Audra Burch, a black reporter for The Times in Minneapolis who has been covering these issues for years, said on The Daily last week that the scale and intensity of the protests this time feel somehow different — more likely to be some kind of turning point, though she said she can’t figure out what it looks like on the other side.

       Isabella: What also may be different this time is that the power of this movement has transcended the American conversation to become a global conversation. In Australia, which is still feeling the consequences of a colonial past that dehumanized Indigenous people, a protest on Tuesday drew hundreds of people. If you’re angry about the U.S., many Indigenous Australians have said, you can’t ignore the problems at home. Calls for a treaty have renewed. “Be angry for us. Stand with us. Protest with us. Because we need you. I don’t want to live in a country where names become numbers,” said Nakkiah Lui, a writer and playwright (we talked to her in 2017 about some of these issues.)

       Damien: Seeing the huge protests in Amsterdam and other European cities has been really striking. In New Zealand, too, there was quite a powerful Haka for Black Lives Matter as well, which I saw on Twitter. Social media is so dominant with all of this. It’s spreading the movement but I worry that it’s also contributing to divisions as each side shares only what confirms their pre-existing beliefs — and there’s a lot of misinformation around as well. The BBC had a pretty good rundown of misleading footage and conspiracy theories to avoid. What do you make of the role of social media?

       Isabella: It’s complicated because social media has also brought out some frustrations about the most constructive actions to move forward. People have been encouraged to protest, show solidarity and share resources online. But outside of that, what’s next? Where is in most need of funding? How can policing be changed?

       A common phrase I see is that silence is complicity, and it seems like more people than ever declaring their support. We had Black Out Tuesday this week on Instagram, where many people posted a black square with the hashtag #blacklivesmatter. But others then pointed out that if you include that hashtag, it changes the conversation that goes along with it, ultimately drowning out black voices and useful educational context — and that while a black square is a start, change has to be more than a trend.

       That point has also been extended to brands and celebrities who have jumped in to express solidarity — only to have former black employees and colleagues point out their hypocrisy. What’s clear is that the conversation is now moving beyond social media to what’s concrete — listening, lobbying, donating, voting. James Baldwin said it plainly: “Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

       Damien: I was pretty impressed by what I saw in Newark, New Jersey. It’s the first city I covered as a reporter for The Times, and when I was there about 15 years ago, police brutality was a major issue and the anger at the government was intense. They had a bout of violent unrest there in 1967 after a black cabdriver was beaten up by the police. But this time, the mayor, Ras Baraka, and the chief of police, who is white, walked with protesters and after years of improvements with training, community policing and accountability for problematic police officers, there was no violence, no looting, just peaceful shared outrage and marching, at least for now.

       Isabella: Meanwhile, just this week New South Wales police are investigating an officer after he threw an Aboriginal teenage boy to the ground during an arrest. But the incarceration rate for Aboriginal people is about 30 percent in Australia, far above the 2 percent of the population they represent — and even above the rate for black Americans. There have been over 400 deaths in custody since 1991, and not a single police officer has been convicted.

       Allan Clarke, a Muruwari-Gomeroi journalist who has covered deaths in custody spoke of that pain. “I am haunted by all the ghosts of so many of our mob who have been killed and inconsolable about the injustice of it all,” he wrote recently. “How can we ever really win or be seen and have agency in a judicial system and society that never included us from the beginning?”

       Damien: Buddy Franklin of the Sydney Swans — he’s of Noongar-Wajuk heritage but he rarely speaks out on such issues — had a lot to say about that as well this week.

       If there’s one benefit of the discussion around race becoming so widespread, it may be that it reaches into corners it might not otherwise touch — and maybe what we’re seeing now will have a longer-term impact for this generation and beyond.

       My kids, for example, have been really engaged on the issue. We’ve always talked about race a fair bit in our house but this time, they are coming to me with questions and suggestions.

       My 11-year-old son was the one who told me that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech” is on Spotify. He listened to it on his own without any prompting but then we listened to it together this week and discussed all that goes beyond the most famous quotes about Dr. King’s dream — including a nod not to hope but to the challenging of authority.

       This line gave me the chills: “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”

       That was in 1963. It was true then and it’s still true today.

       Now here are our stories of the week.

       Australia and New Zealand

       What Will It Take to Reopen the World to Travel?: Above all, it’s trust. Countries like Australia and New Zealand are trying to build “travel bubbles” under enormous economic pressure, while keeping a wary eye on a virus that’s not going away soon.

       Australia Asks for Investigation After Police Attack 2 Journalists in U.S.: The prime minister wants answers after officers in riot gear dealt roughly with the two Channel 7 journalists, who were covering a protest outside the White House.

       The Best Movies and TV Shows New to Netflix, Amazon and Stan in Australia in June: Our picks for June, including “Queer Eye," “Da 5 Bloods,” “Scarface” and “LOL: Last One Laughing Australia.”

       Global Anger Grows Over George Floyd Death, and Becomes an Anti-Trump Cudgel: Public outcries over racism in the United States erupted from Addis Ababa to Vancouver. China and Iran, criticized on human rights by the Trump administration, called the killing of Mr. Floyd a symbol of American hypocrisy.

       Student Activist in Australia Is Suspended After China Protests: Drew Pavlou, an advocate of Hong Kong democracy and against Chinese influence on campus, has been barred from his studies at the University of Queensland until 2022.

       Around The Times

       Today’s Activism: Spontaneous, Leaderless, but Not Without Aim: Welcome to 21st-century activism, where social media is the strongest organizer. At the core is an egalitarian spirit, a belief that everyone’s voice matters.

       Hong Kong Remembers Tiananmen Square When Others Forget: The banning of this year’s vigil on June 4 underlined that Hong Kong’s freedoms are entering an uncertain phase under Beijing’s rule.

       Mattis Accuses Trump of Dividing the Nation in a Time of Crisis: He “does not even pretend to try” to unite Americans, the former defense secretary said, breaking his long public silence on the president amid protests across the nation.

       Venice Glimpses a Future With Fewer Tourists, and Likes What It Sees: Can a city whose history and culture drew tens of millions of visitors a year reinvent itself? The coronavirus may give it a chance to try.

       Wild Cockatoos Are Just as Smart as Lab-Raised Ones: Previous research suggested that spending a lot of time with humans might make animals more innovative. These birds had another idea.

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