George Floyd is killed by a police officer in Minneapolis, and protests erupt over his death in particular and police brutality in general. In conjunction with those protests, riots and looting break out. When people complain about the riots and looting, they are told that they need to keep the focus on George Floyd’s death and police brutality, and the rioters and looters are not part of the protests anyway. So while we are still discussing improvements to policing from defunding the police to voting for more Democrats in cities that have had nothing but Democratic office holders for like 50 years, the protests pivot to pulling down statues of confederate generals (Democrats to a man BTW). When people complain about the lack of process and the destruction of property involved, they are told that if Christian churches had statues of Satan people would wonder. I’m still wondering at that analogy. But before the paint was dry on the first confederate statue, pretty much any old statue was fair game to be vandalized, from the alarming like abolitionist Union generals including US Grant to the simply absurd like Miguel Cervantes and Stevie Ray Vaughan. And there are threats to the Emancipation Memorial with Abraham Lincoln which was paid for by freed slaves and dedicated by Fredrick Douglass. So tell me again how vandalizing and pulling over statues of Abraham Lincoln isn’t taking the focus off George Floyd and police brutality? I know I’m slow and all because when people say defund the police I somehow leap to the conclusion that means taking money from police departments but I’m assured that it means something completely different, defang perhaps. And don’t get me started on all the white protesters calling black cops racist and that word ordinarily no white person is allowed to use.
Another puzzling thing is how when black communities hold vigils and protests when blacks are killed by other blacks (and they do with distressing regularity) none of this nonsense happens. It gets local media attention, no looting occurs, no rioting, no vandalizing, no violence, just peaceful protest.
I’m thinking that there are a bunch of people who really don’t care about George Floyd, his death, other people’s deaths, police brutality, racism, logic, discussion, reason, they just want to steal and break things. An orgy of destruction is their aim. And not only they shouldn’t be encouraged, they should be condemned.
