This is Much Deeper Than the Death of George Floyd

There’s an old saying from a Roman poet (Juvenal – 1st century) that goes: 

“Give them Bread & Circuses and they will never revolt.”

It’s this idea that as long as you give people a means to survive (bread) and some forms of entertainment (circuses), these two things will keep the public satisfied & occupied; distracting them from bigger issues at play. 

If you apply this concept to what’s happening in America right now, it can give you a better understanding as to why these things are happening right now. 

COVID-19 has essentially removed both the “bread” and “circus” from the current equation. 

People are losing their jobs at drastic rates, leaving people to rely on stimulus and unemployment checks. And virtually every form of entertainment has been removed; no sports, no parties, all the way down to even no haircuts. 

So due to all of this, people have simply been on edge. Us black Americans have been systematically disadvantaged for centuries, but the “bread & circus” have kept us in check, mostly. However, now that these things aren’t distracting us from the bigger picture, and seeing the Ahmad Arbery and Breonna Taylor’s deaths take over the media cycle the past few weeks, George Floyd’s death is simply the straw that broke the camel’s back of more than 300 years worth of systematic oppression.

I say all of this to say that when researching George Floyd’s unjust murder, it’s important to factor in that it is not as if this one police case is worse than the hundreds of other injustices caught on camera this past decade. If anything Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and Philando Castile’s situations in particular should have incited something like this. We are all just very frustrated as a people and have been searching for the one thing to take out our pent-up frustrations in a time like this.

Now to those who see these protests happening around this country and do not support the violence or looting involved, I don’t blame you, necessarily. Many people have shared this stance, citing peaceful protest as the proper manner to voice grievances instead of hurting our own communities and dismantling small businesses in the process. This is a convenient position to take, but there’s a lot of factors at play as to why these things are happening, that most people with this view aren’t taking into account.

For starters, a lot of the violence you see publicized on television is not done or orchestrated by “black lives matter” protesters. It has been reported in many cities that members of anarchist groups have been coming out and taking advantage of the carnage to loot and perform arson.

There have also been people documenting that many random police cars have been purposefully left in the path of marching protests, with the intent for these protestors to vandalize/burn the cars in the heat of the moment. Even some movie-prop police cars have been used in the same practice to further make things look bad. Then there’s the racists who come out & pretend to be protesters, to then graffiti anti-white messages with the intent to make us look bad & white people to be able to play victim. So it’s not all black lives matter protesters doing this harm.

But there is, of course, openly targeted violence/vandalism of specific establishments by the movement. Namely, the initial Target being burned down in Minneapolis because they were openly refusing to sell milk to protesters, which would have been used to get tear gas & pepper spray out of victims’ eyes. Or the vandalism done to the CNN headquarters in Atlanta in response to their skewed coverage of these riots being primarily violent rather than peaceful in many regards. Then of course the vandalism of police precincts in different cities. In these cases, the violence is in direct response to what protestors deem as wrong-doings.

But I’d be remiss to not address people quite literally going out to loot and vandalize. With them, there seems to be two types of people: those who are just trying to take advantage of a purge-like policing on looting, attempting to live out their riot/anarchy fantasies that have seemingly been romanticized by fans of films like “Joker”, and then those who are simply doing these things out of frustration.

Of those two, there are likely more of the later, but people need to realize that, to put it colloquially, we are sick & tired of being sick & tired.

People are tired of not being able to turn to a leader. Our civil rights leaders throughout the past century, such as MLK, Malcolm X, & Fred Hampton have been outright assassinated by our own government; Fred Hampton (Black Panther party leader) was even shot to death in his own bed by a SWAT team sting operation. This is one of the main reasons why there is no outright leader of the Black Lives Matter Movement, because they don’t want to give the opposition, or the government a chance to ‘cut the head off the snake’.

People are tired of having these protests. For practically a decade now, with more than dozens of injustices that even have video evidence showing crimes at the hands of police officers, these protests follow each high profile case, only for more often than not, nothing being done in terms of arresting the criminal officers or passing legislation which would prevent similar situations. 

Nobody wants violence; it’s an honest shame that so many small businesses have been burned and looted as a result of these protests. Entire people’s livelihoods have been lost due to the public unrest, and it is beyond unfortunate; I have great sympathy for those business owners.

However, we as African-Americans have been victims of the government establishment for centuries; systematically disadvantaged long after America’s greatest sin, which was slavery. We watched reparations be given to slave masters for their “economic hardship” following the abolishment of their free source of labor, yet more than 150 years later, we are still advocating for our own reparations as victims of slavery. We watch as the 13th amendment, which repealling slavery, included a caveat in it which makes prisoners the new form of free labor in the nation. 

Its far deeper than the effects of the Jim Crow era, it’s the lack of criminalization for KKK Lynchings the past century, it’s the system of sharecropping following slavery, its the current process of redlining and jerrymandering that continues in this county, its the effects of the war on drugs that several decades later have still not been fixed, and hundreds of other issues that have hurt our people, let alone this injustice of police brutality. 

We as black people have been backed into a corner with police having free reign to murder us with no consequences. So I look at those people who don’t “agree” with the violence, when you factor in all of these centuries of oppression, I ask: “What did you expect was going to happen?”

The buildings can be rebuilt, the money can be recovered, but the innocent slain black lives that we are marching for cannot be resurrected.

Don’t condone the violence then, that is totally fine, but you need to understand why it is all happening.

Lastly, these protests going forward have to be rooted in more than just wanting the remaining 3 officers arrested. We need to be marching for legitimate legislation to be formulated and passed by Congress that will hold police officers accountable for their wrong-doings.

Counties need to have independent judiciary review boards that specifically investigate complaints against officers regarding police brutality & excessive force. Officers cannot simply get a slap on the wrist with a paid suspension any longer, they must be disallowed to police their cities if they are proven to practice bad policing.

The “Blue Wall of Silence” also MUST be dismantled. If a cop is at the scene of, or made aware of another officer using excessive force, it should be his duty to report that incident. Policies must be enacted to reflect the importance of integrity in the police force. 

Stricter regulations need to be set for police hirings, as well; requiring new officers to have lived in that major city (or county) for a set amount of time before they are allowed to police it. Too many officers patrol streets they’ve never walked in without a badge on, which does a disservice to the entire community.

We have every right to be frustrated, but there must be a bigger goal at the end of this, or else we’ll be right back where we started with police continuing to get away with injustices.