Barricade Day
Today is June 5th, the date the June Rebellion started in France. Les Mis fans know today as “Barricade Day.” Which gets me thinking, the only reason we in the modern day know about the June Rebellion as any more than a footnote and a few illustrations is because Victor Hugo was there and he wrote about it. Documenting things is just so damn important.
This is why I absolutely cannot stand the “Look at those vaucous millenials filming everything!” school of thought. Hopefully recent events have demonstrated WHY you should be filming/documenting everything when dealing with the police etc, especially if they’re in the vicinity of black people, and why it’s so damn horrible that it got to that point. How do you think the world found out about the murder of George Floyd, because it sure as heck wasn’t police bodycams.
The people Hugo wrote about didn’t exist, yeah, but they were stand-ins for people who did, so his publishing the book ensured we in the future got to know at least roughly what people in that era were thinking and feeling as what’s now history happened around them.
I’m really grateful we have the sort of technology now that allows us to document important things in real-time. We need to always use it for good. Always.