The Lynching of George Floyd

Before I begin, I know without looking at your pathetic Facebook posts, that certain people in this country are probably decrying the riots and quoting Martin Luther King, Jr. regarding peaceful protest. "Why aren't these protesters being more like him?" What? Shot and killed? A great deal of certain Americans didn't even like him during his time.  So it's strange how his name is invoked by the same people who continue to directly and indirectly support racism. Even though King condemned violence, including rioting, here is what he thought on the matter:

 "...that riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?" (The Other America, Speech given at Stafford University, April 14, 1967)

So what say you, America? What say you about the lynching of Americans right before our eyes over and over?  Maybe you need it defined for you:

Lynching: "to put to death by mob action without legal approval or permission." The mob being some police offers thinking it's their job to abuse the authority and trust given to them.  Some choose to take black lives discriminately, while others stand and watch.

Last Monday night, Minneapolis police pinned to the ground, George Floyd, to the ground by putting a knee on his neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52861726) and choking him to death, while other officers stood around. Floyd pleaded, "I can't breath."  For what it's worth, he was unarmed.  He worked as a security guard at a Latin restaurant. We saw him lynched before our eyes.  

Floyd was one of many throughout the years.  Over and over again.  How much more should we tolerate? I guess I am talking to a nation that doesn't mind seeing children being slaughtered in their schools.  I am talking to nation that allows endless wars to continue on into the next generation.  I am talking to a nation that denies racism exists and claims that it doesn't know what "white privilege" means. Let me give you a blaring example, just a few weeks ago, the media amplified these white "open the economy" and "Fuck you, I'm not wearing mask" protests at state houses across the country.  All white people, with guns, shouting in cops' faces without masks.  Nothing.  So what if they would have been black and brown protesters with guns?  Maybe that was the mistake of the current protesters, we should have brought our guns?  Really?  The responses to the two different protests are glaring. White Americans think that they are being persecuted by asking to wear masks so they bring guns, while Black Americans are fighting for their very existence unarmed. The fight to exist in America, this is why "Black Lives Matter."

For those who are simpleminded, who answer the plea of "Black Lives Matter" with the pathetic response of "All Lives Matter," my response to your obtuse one is that America seems to forget that black lives actually do matter. We seem to think that any non-white life is less important than white ones. So, please, don't act like you care about all life, because you don't. The lynching of George Floyd, along with others (As a mother, the murder of Tamir Rice is especially painful for me.), by police departments around America is further evidence that America has forgotten and doesn't care about black lives. Your response is at most racist within itself, because you want to deny racism exists. Colorblind my ass. If you were colorblind, then you would be just as appalled by the lynching of ANY American as I am. You would pressure our government for change. Real change. You would acknowledge the killings of other Americans. But you all will sit there and then say, "Blue Lives Matter."

My response to that is that you all don't really care about police officers either. Every single time states and municipalities discuss budget cuts, they attack pensions. Police pensions are just as easily attacked as you all do with teachers and state/city workers. You fall for the wealthy's line of attack over and over again. If we did care, we would ensure community policing policies as well as care for mental health issues for officers were intact. Our officers would require diversity training to deal with the various and diverse population that is America. (Oh, wait, you all hate diversity anything, including the word, right?) So please.

As for the police officers out there, you need to hold your brothers and sisters in Blue accountable when they violate the human rights of the people they are suppose to "serve and protect." You all should be angry at the officer that lynched George Floyd. That officer not only dehumanized George Floyd, but all of you. Would it have been too much for one them standing there that day to just say, "Hey, maybe get off his neck?" For every police-sponsored lynching (or beating/brutality), the dehumanization of police officers worsens as you all are turned into tools of oppression instead of justice. You all become monsters to many of us instead of the heroes that many of you are. These officers are the ones you should be angry with, not at the people trying to fight to exist. What happened to the concept of "excessive force"? You all should be calling your blue bothers and sisters out. You all need to call out those officers that dehumanize you all, be angry at them, not the people crying for justice and an end to police brutality. Be angry at your brothers and sisters that have tarnished your service. I ask you, the brothers and sisters in Blue, which side are you on? Justice and peace? Or oppression? Because I can guarantee you, the wealthy do not need your protection, they have the politicians for that. You all, like it or not, are like the rest of us, expendable to them.

Ideally, you want peaceful protest, but sometimes I am not sure how much human beings can take seeing one's own being lynched over and over. For this writing, I listened to the above quoted speech from MLK. I cried because nothing seems to have changed, at least not at the foundation. In 1967, he talked of racism and class. He talked about war. He talked about poverty. He talked about every time there is progress, that progress gets set back. Those words are even true today. Electing a bigoted buffoon after Barack Obama just proved to me that the same system that was prevalent during the Civil Rights era, is still there. Though, I never was one of those idiots that believed we were "post-racial" after the election of Obama, I definitely thought we would be a little more forward, until the killing of Michael Brown. Racism was alive and well in the Obama era. America's regression was capped off with the election of this buffoon, who was touting racist, misogynist, and xenophobic rhetoric of the cockroaches that crawled out of the woodwork to work and promote his campaign and presidency. Or maybe the cockroaches were always there?

So what do we do?  If you condemn the rioting, you should condemn the lynching of black lives.  I am demanding that police officers condemn the actions of brutality by their brothers and sisters. I am demanding justice for George Floyd. I am demanding that we rebuild a new criminal justice system that works for everyone. I am demanding that Black Lives Matter.