May George Floyd rest in peace and may we bring lasting justice for African Americans in his memory.
Before protests began over his torture and murder and the failure to arrest immediately the policemen who killed him, Black mothers rocked with grief. How do we make sense of a world where the state and vigilantes can execute us? How do we teach our children to value themselves and each other when the larger society does not?
We know that was the collective us under the knee of Officer Chauvin. We felt him squeezing the life out of us as he squeezed it out of George Floyd, just as Trump and his enablers are squeezing the life out of American democracy. Our dream for a different America bled out as we watched a White cop brazenly strangle a Black man literally in front of the eyes of outraged bystanders who implored him to stop.
The police murder of George Floyd might have disappeared like so many other murders of Black people by police, even when witnessed by the community. But fortunately this modern lynching was documented by a courageous 17-year-old, African American Darnella Frazier. With that evidence for the world to see, we started to protest and fight back.
George Floyd is a part of the collective us. We are part of all the African Americans who have been tortured and executed by police with impunity. They knew they could get away with it because of our race. A piece of us suffered and died with George Floyd. But we rose up in his name and are fighting back.
Some new, outraged young activists have linked their words and purpose with veteran organizers to seize the moment. Even some elders are willing to face the dual risk to their lives, with careful precautions, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and the threat of police violence when they protest police brutality and systemic racism in the streets.
Protests are growing larger with support and involvement beyond the Black community. People of all races are showing up to protest again and again. They are multiplying. While some infiltrators try to hijack the movement, the movement grows in size, power and strength. It grows with a spirit that appears to increase with every attack despite some aggressive policing and the National Guard.
The intractability of racism in this country that we are fighting can be measured by the tribalized sector of White America that supports Trump. Even with his abysmal mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the vast, needless loss of life, and despite recent polls that show that little more than 20 percent of Americans approve of his handling of these protests, still 33 percent of Americans hang on tightly. It is our duty to vote our strength, defeat them by punishing Trump at the ballot box on November 3.
The killers of George Floyd—hopefully, all four of them—will come to justice, we pray. The movement sparked by his torture and murder will continue to outlive him and bring justice from his senseless killing.
Our brave young leaders in the streets and new, responsive officials in elected office face the daunting challenge of bringing lasting justice from the ashes of this tragedy. We must remake this into a country where police officers no longer feel entitled to harass and kill Black people with no consequences. We must remake this into a country where, when police officers do others harm, they face the same system of justice they are paid to enforce. We must remake this into a country where Black people enjoy equal justice and treatment under the law. We must remake this into a country where Black lives matter.
(Reprinted from the St. Louis American)
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