Breaking Down a Social Breakdown
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Once again, a white police officer has taken the life of a black man…and in the process, roiled America. But this time seems different, doesn’t it?
As protestors marched peacefully…and then rampaged wantonly…there seemed to be something more at stake.
I’m trying to work through this one point at a time:
A black man in Minneapolis lay defenseless on the street, face down, hands cuffed behind his back. He was the very antithesis of a threat.
Nevertheless, a white police officer felt compelled to exert the force of his full body weight on one knee—a knee that crushed the side of the black man’s neck.
The victim first gasped and pleaded…and then began to go limp. The knee was not removed.
Three fellow police officers stood and watched the murder…apparently without saying or doing a thing.
People in Minneapolis angrily protested. That protest spread to virtually every big city in America.
In total, the protests included every race, age and gender.
An ocean away, a player in Germany’s top soccer league scored a goal. In celebration, he pulled off his overshirt to reveal one underneath, on which he had written the words, “Justice for George Floyd.”
Officials and observers divided the protesters into “day” and “night”. The former were loud but lawful. The latter were destructive and often dangerous.
In an echo of the 60’s, claims of “outside agitators” were voiced. Facts are yet to be determined. But officials say the nighttime marauders included elements of both the far left and the far right. Intelligence officials say they were prompted by angry posts on social media--some of those posts coming from China and Russia.
Police in various cities used various tactics to quell the destruction. This included tear gas, rubber bullets and defensive perimeters. There were arrests. None of those officers had a single thing to do with George Floyd’s murder. Being human, some were fearful. And many undoubtedly wondered how one racist cop in Minnesota managed to put them in this spot.
Smashing store windows and setting police cars on fire moves us further away from a solution.
Uncharacteristically, leaders of national police and law enforcement agencies declined to find an “other side of the story.” While they did not move to outright criticism, their silence was a step forward.
The Obama administration made the first substantive (if stumbling) steps toward neutralizing racism in the nation’s police departments.
However, limiting the basis for the outrage to just racism is a shortsighted. It has a wider base. Some came from the pent-up frustration caused by the Covid-19 lockdowns…and some from the immediate economic stresses the virus is causing.
But the wider truth, even if unstated by the protesters, is that young people in this country have just had it with the current system. Even if you could magically snap your fingers and erase racism from every heart, there would still be outrage. The system is rigged in favor of the rich and the old. And it’s getting worse.
After spending days desperately trying to pretend the incident did not occur, Donald Trump sensed potential political gain and did an about-face. However, whether speaking or not speaking, he was equally irrelevant.
The only protest that will make a difference is at the ballot box. And if Donald Trump is going to declare that ANTIFA is a terrorist group…then he’s going to have to live with me declaring the current Republican Party as a terrorist group. They must be vanquished in every election.
As long as the GOP holds power in Washington, American inequality and racism will thrive.
And as it does, inevitably another defenseless black man, begging for life, will have that life taken by a white executioner wearing a badge.
And then there will be another.
And another…
Could this time be different? We won’t really know until November.
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