Minneapolis and George Floyd 2020

I am saddened by the protests in Minneapolis. I am not saddened because of the property damage. I am saddened because this level of violence seems to be the only way people of color can be heard.

Like a majority of my FB friends, I was there at the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in 1992. The LAPD beat the living daylights out of Rodney King long after he was subdued. What made the brutality against King so sickening was that it was caught on video. This kind of violence between the police the communities of color had been happening regularly.

Obviously it is still happening regularly, only now the brutality is fatal. In 2019, there were 27 days when somebody did not die due to police brutality. The remaining 338 days, somebody died at the hands of the police. The majority of those deaths are people of color.

After Watts and after Rodney King there was hope that the violence was an opportunity to improve: jobs and other opportunities in communities of color; the same respect offered to the communities of color as to the white community; a mutual respect between all communities. 

When this doesn’t happen, the communities of color begin peaceful protests. T-shirts printed with “I can’t breath”, ridiculed by the white community as bringing politics unnecessarily into sport. Taking a knee at the national anthem, ridiculed by the white community as disrespecting the national flag and service personnel. Creating a movement online and in the streets that #BlackLivesMatter, ridiculed by the white community because all lives matter. The communities protest because they want more — not more than the white communities, but more than the untold and unseen prejudice and violence that dates back to the founding of the United States and continues to today.They want the same kind of respect that the white communities have always enjoyed. Unfortunately, these peaceful protests are ignored and simply not heard, if not outright ridiculed.

So, something happens that is simply one step too many. The LAPD beat up Rodney King, get caught on video, and then are set free in the court system. The Minneapolis police kill George Floyd. The peaceful protests have not worked. The anger of trying to protest in a way that is acceptable to the white community and then failing to be heard finally culminates in a boiling point. 

I am not saying the riots are right. I am not saying that all police are fatally brutal. But damnit, when are we going to learn???!!! When are we, the privileged white community, rich or poor, going to start addressing these issues? When are we going to start electing officials at all levels of government that want to actively address the systematic injustice against the communities of color, that want to implement non-lethal methods in the police training programs, that want to enforce de-escalation conflict management policies? When are we going to start holding these officials to account? More importantly, when are we ourselves going to start engaging constructively with communities of color instead of building barriers to social equality?