George Floyd, 46, was lynched this week…
There is no other way to describe what we watched on that video, and the police officers who lynched him–and those who stood idly by–are murderers and accomplices to first degree murder. Yes, first degree murder, because the officer who I will not give the respect of naming had over eight minutes to reflect and yet he coldly kept his knee on Floyd’s neck–and ignored his plaintive cries–like a savage animal thirsty for the kill.
George Floyd was lynched this week…
When I see Floyd, I cannot help but to see myself. He was 46, I am 48. We grew up experiencing the same events. He played tight end and defensive end–I played center and linebacker. Had we ever met, we probably could have talked for hours about Star Wars, Rocky, or Superman…We could have discussed where we were when the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up…We could have debated whether “It Takes Two” by Rob Base was a greater party starter than “The Show” by Doug E. Fresh…As a Texan, I imagine we would have debated to a standstill whether high school football is better in Florida or Texas. Indeed, when I see Floyd–I see Hobbs…
George Floyd was lynched this week…
Floyd was a momma’s boy–I am a momma’s boy. And there is no shame in that, mind you, because my personal experiences have been that men who adore and protect their mommas are better men all around then the ones who despise, ridicule, or bring shame to their mommas. Further, I have heard many war veterans, including my own deceased father, say that men often cry out for their momma during a deadly firefight or while dying; hearing Floyd cry out for his momma with his dying breaths is something that will haunt me until the day I take my own last breath.
George Floyd was lynched this week…
What renders me apoplectic this morning is that had videotape emerged of George Floyd subduing that savage officer with his knee in his neck until the officer died, Floyd would have been arrested immediately for first degree murder–full stop! As one who has labored in the criminal justice system for 21 long, tiring, depressing years, trust when I tell you that it does not take brilliant legal minds like William Blackstone, Oliver Wendell Holmes, or Charles Hamilton Houston to surmise that those officers murdered George Floyd on tape. Their arrests should be imminent–like TODAY! But they will be slow in coming…if they come at all…because the system protects its own each and every single day across America.
George Floyd was lynched this week…
I didn’t rest well last night, because I cannot help but wrestle with the idea that we are recycling hashtags now; “I Can’t Breathe” was our mantra for the late Eric Garner, and now here it is again six years later for George Floyd. I have never been one to beg anyone for anything, least of all respect for me and my kind to live free from systemic racial oppression.
And believe you me, it is systemic racial oppression when an officer can squeeze the life out of you on camera over an alleged minor offense like selling cigarettes or presenting a fake $20 bill to buy food, which is what Floyd was accused of doing. I didn’t rest well last night because I know that many of our fellow Americans who see these things happening to Black and Brown people who are killed by public servants who are paid by the tax dollars culled from people of all races–public servants with big guns and small minds who believe that their badge gives them the authority to kill racial minorities with impunity–and yet they remain silent as the tomb George Floyd will soon rest within about these matters. Americans who know this is all wrong, Americans who will exclaim “I have friends who are Black,” but who will go into a grand jury room and vote to not bring charges against murderous cops–or go into petit jury rooms and acquit murderous cops because deep inside the psyche of many of our fellow Americans of European descent, there is a demented belief that officers are always right, and that Black and Brown “suspects” must have done something to hasten their own demise.
George Floyd was lynched this week…
History repeats itself: A century ago, an openly racist white male, Woodrow Wilson, was in the Oval Office. A century ago, the so-called “Spanish Flu” was killing millions across the globe. A century ago, white Americans were lynching and killing Black people with impunity during the so-called “Red Summer,” one that venerable historian Dr. John Hope Franklin called “the greatest period of interracial strife the nation has ever witnessed.”
Today, from the White House to City Hall, political leaders are stoking racial strife in ways not seen since the Wilsonian Age. The current president in 2017 remarked that Skinheads and Neo-Nazis were “good people,” and has since called Black NFL players “ungrateful Sons of B*tches,” called African nations “sh*thole countries,” and just this past week, loudly praised Henry T. Ford, the Nazi sympathizer whose German subsidiaries profited by making weapons and machines for the German war effort, and whose portrait hung on Adolf Hitler’s very own office wall. Trump is not alone and truth be told, he is only one of many outward manifestations of systemic racism and white supremacy that is deep inside the minds of even some whites who call themselves progressives, Democrats, or “allies” to the Black struggle for equality. Indeed, Amy Cooper, the fake white damsel in distress who lied and tried to get Christian Cooper–a Black man–arrested or killed in Central Park, reportedly is a liberal Democrat.
George Floyd was lynched this week…
What do we do? How do we fulfill the great Harlem Rennaisssance writer Claude Mckay’s poem “If We Must Die” and fight back? The time for talking is long past over, and I fully support those who have taken to the streets to protest this latest police murder. I have always agreed with Brother Malcolm X’s admonition to secure our rights to life, liberty, and happiness “by any means necessary,” and I remind all to arm and protect yourselves and your families accordingly.
There is something totally perverse in America that white males can storm state capitols while armed to protest Coronavirus social distancing and live to tell, or they can commit mass murder and get taken into custody peacefully, but Black men and women charged with misdemeanors and minor traffic infractions wind up in the county morgue.
We must commit to using any means necessary, especially with regards to voting in local sheriff and prosecutor races, to demand that our rights as human beings are respected across America. No more forgiving prayers or begging savages to be less savage, we have the same rights to live–and die–as free men and women in these United States and we must demand and exercise them in every way imaginable!
Lest we forget George Floyd…
