TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2020 - BLACK LIVES MATTER

 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 29, 2020 - BLACK LIVES MATTER

Year in review - part II On my list of 2020 highlights (lowlights?) is BLM - Black Lives Matter.

Yes - Black Lives do Matter!!!

On May 25th, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, George Floyd was killed by police. Seemingly, Floyd was trying to pass a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill.  Yes, that is illegal.  

Wikipedia notes “He (George Floyd) was a hip hop artist and served as a mentor in his religious community. Between 1997 and 2005, he was convicted of eight crimes. He served four years in prison after accepting a plea bargain for a 2007 aggravated robbery in a home invasion.”

So, yes, he probably should have been arrested - counterfeiting is a crime, and passing counterfeit bills intentionally is a crime.  But, it is not a crime punished by death on a street by a police officer.

Another article said “Four police officers arrived for what is now a notorious arrest, captured on video by bystanders. Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin held his knee on Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes, and Floyd was declared dead shortly thereafter.

And, a further description “Newly released transcripts of the minutes leading up to George Floyd’s death reveal he told officers “I can’t breathe” more than 20 times, only to have his plea dismissed by Derek Chauvin, the white officer pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck, who said: “It takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk.”

His death was ruled a homicide. Chauvin and three other Minneapolis police officers were fired; Chauvin faces criminal charges.

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What was going through Derek Chauvin’s mind as he knelt on George Floyd’s neck for eight minutes?  

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This set off a summer of Black Lives Matter demonstrations - some of which lead to riots and destruction.  We saw race demonstrations. I heard an elderly white lady comment about the nastiness of the riots.  The rioters broke story windows and stole merchandise.  

I am reminded of a very incorrect statement from history - where Marie Antoinette supposedly said “Let them eat cake” when told that the peasants didn’t have bread.  Even though sources say she didn’t say those words, the sentiment was supposedly true.  Marie and the others were rich, and to not have bread was not even understood by them.  But, of course, all people have bread if I interpret the conceptual basis of Marie Antoinette.

To me - a white person with a very privileged background, I don’t understand the Black Culture of poverty, of having to pass counterfeit bills to buy things.  I don’t understand why many Black Americans lived from paycheck to paycheck and when the pandemic interrupted that process and Black Americans were laid off at a higher rate than managerial white Americans.  

What does a group do when they get oppressed long enough?  What does a group do when they don’t have money, their rent (or mortgage) is due and they can’t pay it?  When they do have the money to buy food or clothes.  And, the white people around them are blind and deaf to their plight?  Is a riot ever justified?  What if peaceful protests do spell over when somebody yells at them or tells them they are not worthy?  What if only a few ‘hot-heads’ throw bricks and break things?  How does such a group make their situation known?  

I don’t know the solution to poverty among black families, I don’t know the solution to the problems that have been just under the surface since the Civil War.  

In 1963, fifty-seven years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King said in his “I have a dream” speech,

“But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.”

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Now fifty-seven years later, are the Black Americans free?  Is the life of the Black Americans still crippled by segregation and discrimination?  Are Black Americans still on that lonely island of poverty?  

Yes, George Floyd was killed by a police officer, other Black Americans are jailed more frequently than white Americans.  

Were Black Americans justified by peaceful protests?  Did Congress listen?  Did the President listen?  Did police departments listen?  

As a white American, I am more a part of the problem and not a part of the solution.  And, as one of those privileged white Americans, I challenge us to face up to the statement “With Liberty and Justice for all”.  Can we find solutions?  Can we find solutions in light of a pandemic and poverty in the black community?

If we can not find solutions and have meaningful dialogues and progress, the summer of 2021 may be a repeat of the summer of 2020!!

LOVE WINS!!

Hugs!!

Karen