Even my little town is protesting police violence right now. I'm planning to go to the next one now that I know they're happening! It feels like there's a particular kind of brain rot endemic to academia. I know far too many intelligent, driven folks who cannot think clearly and have little long-term memory because something is always on fire and anything without a short deadline never gets done. I'm not really sure what to do about this but it sure does make my life difficult. The cherries on our cherry tree are just about ripe and I am pretty excited for whatever we end up making from them!
Prioritization is difficult in academia because everything carries an extra layer of pomp, circumstance and bureaucracy. Attempts to simplify and humanize prioritization generally make the situation worse because they cannot be applied uniformly. This is why so much actual progress in academic situations is accomplished by walking up to someone unannounced and asking them for a decision or approval face to face - it knocks them out of their academic register and forces them into a managerial fight-or-flight situation. We would throw drafts, proposals, papers, whatever at any number of academic clients and would get total dialtones until someone would get in the car, drive over (sometimes dozens of miles), and knock on the door. Obviously this approach comes with an unacceptable risk in the COVID universe which, I would imagine, makes the situation even more infuriating.
This is how I handle the academics I work with, if I need their sign-off or a decision I just go to their office. If I email anything, they will either take weeks to respond or flat out ignore it. They don't appreciate me always dropping by but I always say "it's better than being ignored and having to clean up the mess you made by ignoring me". Edit: My experience is that of administration of course, but your words certainly echoed that experience for me. This is why so much actual progress in academic situations is accomplished by walking up to someone unannounced and asking them for a decision or approval face to face - it knocks them out of their academic register and forces them into a managerial fight-or-flight situation.