I avoided going to the place that one has to be in order to do the research and reflection required to write this piece. My passion for umoja pushed me to love enough to share through my fear.
Now that we as a community have felt the impact of judicial validation, we realize that a guilty verdict alone cannot quench our thirst for justice. On April 20, 2021 people gathered at the site of George Floyd’s death in front of Cup Foods grocery store waiting for the verdict. The outcome of the hearing was stunning, no one was ready for Judge Peter Cahill to declare a conviction on all the three counts, the complete opposite of the devastation we felt on July 13, 2013 after Trayvon Martin’s murder that exposed the system’s refusal to defend the life of a innocent young black child in the face of white supremacy. On that day Judge Nelson ruled that the murderer was not guilty on all counts, but in this moment there was a complete shift.
Today, with the court’s validation and worldwide sympathy behind BLM as we morn the loss of Floyd in the plight to defend Black life, to the point of commercialization, we’re fueled with self determination. After winding down from initial feelings of victory, it’s difficult to label the void that we still to feel now that George Floyd is gone and Derek Chauvin has filed a request for another trial. Wouldn’t it have been easier to blame an “unjust verdict” on our frustrations? The conditions that provoked Floyd’s death are yet unresolved.
All Three Guilty Counts
- The store worker who called the police for suspecting a customer who’d already left their store used a counterfiet $20 bill to make his purchase.
- The officer who depended on deadly excessive force while interacting with verbally admitant scarred, anxious and recovering from covid-19 George Floyd.
- Those bystanders who were complicit while witnessing this take place.
All of these are part of the problem, but identifying a solution for resolving these injustices is not reliant on the Judas-cial system. We must be creative in our strategy to end police execution of Black civilians.
How Do Bystanders Provoke Change?
INSTANT Refuse to patronize businesses that antagonize Black consumers. Stores like Cup Foods should be going out of business before the end of this year. No one is “safe” visiting these types of shops if Floyd couldn’t be. Allow that to send a strong message to business owners and corporations across this capitalist democracy who create a business culture that vilify and criminalize the Black shopping experience by following Black visitors through their stores, locking up darker makeup products (ie WalMart, Walgreens etc.), and especially those who have the audacity to invite the police into their premises to apprehend and attack unarmed civilians.
IMMEDIATE Speak up and never be a complacent bystander (shopping aimlessly, walking by, browsing) during a suspected instance of police brutality instead pay attention, take notes, film, photograph, announce your doing so to the antogonizer(s) and suggest alternatives to public officials for de-escalating the situation. These small, but loud actions work to strip police of their dependance on the use of excessive force, especially in situations where the person being apprehended has no weapon.
LONG-TERM Now that we have identified the police as a public threat, the people in combination with the media (press and social) must establish a public police de-escalation protocol. Doing this successfully would save countless lives. Regional protocols should be catered to meet the needs of each specific area’s relationship with police (whether tesne, trained or volatile) but could include: gathering witnesses, raising awareness to legal advocates (like the National Lawyers Guild) or by taking some form of recorded, documentable action like using blatant verbal statements or more aggressive methods to defend civilians who are at risk, especially to deadly use of force.
Evidence shows that instances of police brutality decreased significantly in areas where BLM marches were held in protest of Floyd’s murder. From this we can see that peaceful demonstrations are not entirely passive as they do make public officials aware of how executive forces are under a microscope of strict scrutiny. This is a powerful move that didn’t exist while traditional lynchings of the KKK were occurring throughout the decades following the Civil War. We can use this shift in public opinion to our advantage to save lives in the midst of the modern lynching era of viral recorded public execution of Black people in the US.
From Till to Martin to Floyd to No More
Lynchings and other forms of brutal senseless killing of Black people have historically seemed to be a public form of sport in the US. The vulgar images captured during events hanging Black people were so popularly circulated that evil eyed, smiling, white faces crowded underneath hanging corpses still pop up in our new feeds today.
There are many elements of KKK lynchings that have carried over into the practices of today including the KKK patrols (otherwise known as slave patrols) who apprehend and attack those whom they identified as threatening or offensive. These meaningless patrol officers have grown into a state funded institution that “fight crime” through a lens of racially sensitive biases set by elites, maintained by corporate media validated by the judicial system.
Now that the blatant genocidal attacks (far beyond simple injustice) are exposed, views among corporate and independent mass media are unified worldwide. With recent validation from white supremacist America’s own judicial system, we’re perfectly positioned to usher the world into an appreciation for Black life that extends beyond fashion trends and music hits.
Precedents Set by Suffragettes
According to Vox, during the Women’s Suffrage Movement protestors of voting restrictions smashed business windows, destroyed fine art, cut telephone lines and set fire to the homes of their political opponents. These methods worked to keep their cause at the center of public discussion from the mid 1800s to early 1900s. By early 1900 their movement shifted into what was called “Militant Suffragettes” as their tactics incorporated even more disruptive acts, including minor assaults against police.
Acts of military suffragette violence propelled their movement forward: most notoriously Emily Wilding Davison’s “deed” during the live broadcast of the 1913 Epsom Derby, England’s most prestigious horse race at the time. As the race approached the finish, Wilding ducked under the barrier with the Militant Suffragettes’ purple, white and green flag to collide with King George V horse Anmer. Both crashed into the ground, flipping the rider over in front of a crowd of over half-a-million people.
Rather than completely resort to violent acts against police BLM activists, unlike suffragists, have been more embraced rather than isolated in the media recently. In today’s post technological, on-demand world; getting hundreds of thousands of people onto the same livestream isn’t as rare as it was in the 18th century, but the unique challenges of our world captivated by a global health pandemic demand our creative boldness, relentless diligence and umoja.
“Deeds, Not Words!” – Emily Davidson, 1913
