I don’t even know how to begin this post. I wish I did.
The pandemic rages on. I might talk about what that looks like in another post. It feels important to document what is happening but that’s not what I’m here about today.
Today I’m here to talk about the riots. I’m here to talk about the death of George Floyd, a black man in Minnesota who was killed by a white cop. That officer (now former and arrested himself) knelt on George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes until he died of positional asphyxia while 3 of his fellow officers stood and watched (and these 3 men remain free, though fired). It was all caught on video, a viral snuff film.
Over the last five days or so protests have gotten bigger, they’ve spread across the country. Minneapolis. Detroit. New York. Atlanta. Los Angeles. Houston. Louisville. Riots have broken out in several places. Looting has occurred. Businesses and other property has burned. People are furious.
The ex-officer who killed George Floyd wasn’t young. He wasn’t inexperienced. He knew what he was doing and he wasn’t afraid to do it – in full view of the public in the broad light of day. Because he had 17 complaints against him for excessive use of force over the course of his time in the department but no significant discipline for that force had ever been handed down. Every time he wasn’t held accountable was a step toward him feeling emboldened. Every time he wasn’t told “you may not exercise your power in this way” taught him that he could in fact do exactly what he wanted without repercussions.
Until one day he kneeled on a man’s neck for nine minutes and killed him for trying to buy groceries with a counterfeit twenty dollar bill.
Those protests are necessary. Martin Luther King, Jr said that riots are the language of those unheard. They’re the voice of those who have no other voice because we give them no other voice. Colin Kaepernick kneeled and the country went insane. Now people riot and the response is “why can’t you do this peacefully?” Because we white people don’t allow that either.
Worse yet, white people are the ones starting fires and vandalizing shit. It’s not black people. They’re mad – absolutely they are – but they are not setting shit on fire, despite what must be an overwhelming urge to do exactly that. A St. Paul, Minnesota police officer is the one who sparked up the riot there – he ran around breaking windows and starting fires and blaming it on black people. Until he was caught on tape and his ex-wife identified him to the news media. In Atlanta, it was white folks who broke windows and defaced the CNN center.
I’m heartened that the face of this protest is multi-colored. It’s important. It feels like a shift that was a long time coming. In the same breath, I don’t trust it. Too many things have sparked off in the last week because white people felt like they could do what they want. I worry that there are white people who will act as protestors just to burn and loot and make the whole thing worse so that it all gets discredited in the end. I don’t trust us.*
In the meantime, news media – clearly identified and LIVE ON AIR – are being shot at and arrested. A CNN crew with a black reporter were hauled away in cuffs and weren’t released until the Governor called and told the cops to let them go. Thankfully, that happened quickly. A local reporter in Louisville and her crew had rubber bullets shot at them. They weren’t rioting or protesting or surrounded by a crowd. A law enforcement officer (reports say it was a correctional officer) loaded up his weapon and took aim directly for the news media.
There is a direct line from Trump’s mouth to this behavior. He has spent four years vilifying the media that doesn’t kiss his ass, calling them “fake news” and ejecting reporters from the White House press room. And now we have news media literally under attack.
We are supposed to have freedom of the press in this country. Apparently we no longer do. A news crew was arrested before the man who killed George Floyd was.
Trump’s tweets are increasingly unhinged. He calls the protestors “thugs” but when it’s white people with AR’s and armor storming a state house they’re “very fine people.” Your white supremacy is showing, Mr. President.
He threatened to call out the National Guard on Minneapolis and Twitter censored the tweet because it violated their terms of service for promoting violence. (And it did. It was a threat of violence). Trump went ballistic and signed an executive order meant to regulate social media to his liking. Part of it established the keeping of lists – of people like me who don’t like him. He then went to a press conference and said, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Famous words of a racist Miami police chief uttered in 1967. It’s a dog whistle so loud I’m deaf now.
Canada and Mexico have closed their borders to us. Mexico has said they will send food aid. Is America great again yet?
The moment is here. We can’t ignore it, we can’t turn our backs to it. It’s existence is all around us, plain as day. We live in an authoritarian, white supremacist regime. American Fascism was always going to look different but it’s the same damn thing underneath that my grandfather fought to defeat 75 years ago.
I don’t know what happens next but I know that I’m damn scared. I know I bear a responsibility to make a difference, to use the privilege granted me by the color of my skin to protect those who lack my same advantage. I know I bear a responsibility to listen to and amplify the voices of those trying so desperately to be heard. I am imperfect. I am trying.
Let me start with this: click this link. Watch Dr. Cornel West.
*EDIT: The exact thing that I was afraid was happening did, in fact happen. The twitter thread at that link details it. That isn’t allyship and those people had no intention of being allies. Their intention was to cause harm and destruction and I wager that they’re white supremacists.
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