Escalating Cycle of Protest: Death of George Floyd

in an escalating cycle of protest, response, and violence, the nation watches as a major American city ignites. There’s a temptation to conflate the tragic scenes from Minneapolis with the brutal videos of the death of George Floyd, but that’s far too easy and wrong.

In a vacuum, a policeman (or four) committing what appears to be a murder would be cause for national attention and condemnation, and an expectation of a somewhat sensational trial and sentencing… but not a cause for the reciprocal burning of a police station, not the devastation of a neighborhood notable only for its proximity to the event. It is the understanding that the tragedy is not in a vacuum, but the reverse: a confirmation of what has become far too common a pattern, far too familiar a news story, that explains the outcomes.

Let’s start with the givens: the vast majority of police and first responders are good, honest people doing a tough job to the best of their ability. They deserve to be supported and honored. That said, there is a persuasive and important quantity of evidence that systemic racism infects too much of the actions and outcomes of the force’s practices, and Minneapolis has a disproportionate history of inflammatory confirmations.

And so, the death of George Floyd was not in a vacuum. The expectation of a fair trial and sentencing is not a given, because there have been too many prior events where that has not been the case. The protests, most of which have been peaceful and earnest, were intended as a prophylactic, an attempt to ward off the coming of a disease that is familiar and properly feared. It is in the night when the fewer remaining attendees are tilted towards the most extreme, the most aggrieved and reckless, that the conversion to violence has ignited. It was so for the past three nights and may continue both in Minnesota and elsewhere.

And so another city burns and our nation splits even further apart.

That there is a division caused by the trauma of the event is illogical, immoral, and wrong. There are some basic elements that we should all easily agree with and comprehend. Let’s start with the easiest one: that racism has been a national scourge for a few hundred years or more, and still exists in far too great measure despite our professed awareness of its presence.

Do we seriously need to debate this? Probably not, though far too many would argue that the worst of it was resolved in 1965, or with the election of a black man to be president. They miss the point: incremental improvements, while important and necessary, are not cures, nor do they represent the eradication of the disease.

We should be comfortable (or uncomfortable, more appropriately) concurring that the toll of the pandemic and economic crisis has disproportionately prevailed on the minority population. This isn’t subject to an opinion; the numbers are both stark and undeniable. Virtually every painful outcome of the times is grossly magnified when seen through the prism of people of color; from illness and death to unemployment and hunger, to the effects of the closing of our schools, the darker shadings of the calamity are inescapable and revealing. It is not that the disease itself is racist; it is that the generations of underlying inequities and pervasive inequality have consigned too many of our neighbors to a lesser capability of resisting its ravages.

We should easily come together in condemnation of what the videos have forced us to watch. Is there a possibility of some currently unimaginable justification for the apparent murder of Mr. Floyd, the callousness of the officers in ignoring his pleas? Our system of law suggests that we must exhaust that possibility, but reasonable people must all have the same preponderance of opinion. When the police arrive at a murder scene and find one person standing over the corpse with a gun, they arrest that person. So it is here, except for the arrest part.

We can all agree to mourn the loss of Mr. Floyd’s life and share our sincere condolences with those who knew and loved him. Certainly, this needs no further elaboration.

We all agree — or claim to — that the actions of a few should not be credited to the many. Many thousands of Minnesotans protested peacefully; a handful scaled the fences of the police station and ran amuck. It only took a couple of arsonists to light up the cars or buildings even as the shadows of the flames extended over many hundreds of innocent watchers. While we should and must condemn the destruction and threats, we equally should and must be clear that their behavior is an independent choice, not collective blame.

If we agree on those simple and basic premises, then what do we disagree on moving forward?

With those in accord, we can collectively condemn the apparent actions of the police, and the responses of the extreme. We can collectively call for a swift and honest application of our system of justice, a mourning for the victim, and for a rapid de-escalation of the physical violence afflicting the protests, without diminishing the underlying message, value, and appropriateness of the protests themselves.

None of these assertions should be divisive.

And yet.

Even as the young mayor makes the difficult decision that the loss of a building is less than the loss of life, and vacates the police station rather than initiate armed conflict, the president tweets that looters should be shot, and critiques the mayor as weak for his decisions. Even as the elected officials of Minnesota grapple openly with how to respect the justified concerns of their constituency while protecting lives and property, social media roils with calls for heavier armed responses and incites individual vigilantism in the absence of officially sanctioned violence.

The divide widens, the either/or stiffens.

That there is an absence of constructive national leadership, that it is replaced with an urging towards division and confrontation, is so common now as to be sadly assumed. It is our national tragedy and shame and has amplified the impact of virtually all of the problems that have presented themselves without our invitation.

What needs to be shared now, what needs to be broadly spoken about and universally accepted, is that the majority of the country, the majority of all of the people, want better, and are willing to work towards that end. What the media needs to represent is that the many are saddened by the realities of the moment, wish that they were different, take no pleasure in either an unjust history or an inadequate present; the few who feel otherwise are who should be given less of a megaphone and shamed when they use it.

It is not inappropriate that advocates for racial justice make their condemnations as generalities, applying to society as an ideologically homogenous whole. Even if only a small portion of our society is so intensely biased, the pervasive lack of aggressive, consistent condemnation by our current leaders, and the present feeling of entitlement that such views enjoy justifying that perception. It is up to us as a country to first demonstrate that such accusations are not deserved by the majority; until that time arrives, the stigma belongs.

In the pictures of the protests over the past few days, some aspects of the protesters stood out. They were extraordinarily diverse, seemingly representative of Minneapolis as a whole… and they were both young and old, with some families holding banners in the daylight. There is a glimmer of promise in that picture, a realization of a hopeful possibility of a new truth for our country. There is evidence that the present generation is fundamentally improving on its predecessors; that must be celebrated and developed.

If we can focus on what we agree on, what we condemn, and what we want to change, perhaps there will be another (albeit grudging) movement forward for America. If we can encourage our youth to teach and influence their elders, then we can begin to represent a better dynamic.

If we can somehow ignore the executive tweets and just restrain ourselves from shooting our neighbors and families, then maybe we can try to heal ourselves as well as the ones damaged by the day.

Our history has proven that it is difficult, but we must believe that it is not hopeless. We have to learn, we have to work to understand, we have to want collectively to make things better, for us to have a chance.