Just a week ago, newspapers all across our country listed the names on their front pages of thousands of Americans killed by COVID-19. More than 100,000 Americans have perished from the coronavirus. And, as I have repeatedly pointed out, nearly 23 percent of these deaths are African-Americans, even though we black people make up only 13 percent of the U.S. population.
WHEN WILL THIS END?
There is another invisible disease afflicting our country, and that disproportionally impacts African-Americans. This disease is the insidious systemic racism that killed George Floyd on Memorial Day.
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As primarily peaceful protests spread across our country, at the same time as the death toll from the pandemic finally begins to drop, I urge newspapers to list three more names on their front pages: George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. These three African-Americans were killed in the past months. Not by the coronavirus. But by racism.
WHEN WILL THIS END?
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If I had it my way, I would urge newspapers to list on their front pages the names of all African-Americans killed by racism. But, sadly, newspapers don’t have enough print to do so.
I hope that you already know the facts of the tragic killings of Mr. Floyd, Ms. Taylor and Mr. Arbery, all slain since February. But, if not, here is a brief summary.
On May 25, George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man, was killed while being arrested by a white police officer in Minneapolis, Minn. As shown in video footage, Floyd was handcuffed and pinned to the ground for several minutes by the officer’s knee on his neck. Even as Floyd repeatedly pleaded, “I can’t breathe,” the officer continued to pin Floyd to the ground until he stopped breathing. Floyd was pronounced dead at a local hospital less than an hour later. On Friday, May 29, the police officer, Derek Chauvin, was charged with murder and manslaughter.
On March 13, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American woman, was shot eight times and killed by three police officers inside her home in Louisville, Ky. Taylor was an emergency medical technician and an aspiring nurse. The police were executing a “no-knock” search warrant for narcotics in Taylor’s home, but no drugs were reportedly found. Remarkably, to date, none of the police officers has been identified, arrested or charged in Taylor’s murder.
George Floyd (left), Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery
On Feb. 23, Ahmaud Arbery, a 26-year-old African-American man who was jogging in Satilla Shores, Ga., was chased by two white men and killed. As shown, yet again in video footage, one of the white men had a shotgun and three shots were fired. Arbery tried to run away, staggered, fell to the ground and died. Shockingly, it wasn’t until May 7, two and a half months after Arbery died, that the two men, Gregory McMichael, a former police officer, and his son Travis McMichael, were arrested and charged with murder. And it took nearly three months for the white man who took the video while Arbery was being chased, William Bryan Jr., to also be charged with murder.
WHEN WILL THIS END?
Why do innocent African-Americans keep getting killed by the police? And why are these murders even more horrific, in that they occurred in the middle of one of the deadliest pandemics in American history?
Why do innocent African-Americans keep getting killed by the police? And why are these murders even more horrific, in that they occurred in the middle of one of the deadliest pandemics in American history?
Because the current president of the United States has shown no leadership outside of his twitter rantings. Days after Floyd’s murder the president tweeted, at 1 a.m., in response to growing protests of Mr. Floyd’s murder, "These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won't let that happen. ... Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!"
Rather than leading our country and bringing the country together by calling for calm and unity, Trump instead ratchets up the rhetoric of violence and division. In doing so, as many have pointed out, the president’s use of the phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts," was the exact same phrase used by a racist police chief in Miami in 1967 during his department’s violent policing of communities of color and its response to the civil rights movement.
The White House denies that Trump was aware of this phrase’s origin. Yeah, right!
So, I ask again: WHEN WILL THIS END?
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This will end when we all work together to eradicate racism, denounce white supremacy and work toward healing and reconciliation. It will end when we work together as community leaders, elected leaders, houses of worship and all others, including the business community, to help alleviate the unnecessary pain of centuries of systemic racism.
This will end, when we all have the courage to recognize and respect points of view different from our own. This will end when our politics are about compromise and not always about political combat. The time has come, for us to come together. One Nation under God, indivisible for liberty and justice for all. Then this will end.
This will end when our leaders, including public safety officials, take responsibility to train members of their workforce. When we have leaders who, rather than blaming everyone and everything else for his own failures, step up and work across barriers to build bridges of understanding. Leaders who have empathy, rather than indifference. Who unify and protect our country, including communities of color, rather than divide us and pit red and blue states against each other.
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I pray this will end, or at the very least begin to end, with each of us reflecting on what we can do to make this better. When we elect leaders who will unify our country in its fight to defeat systemic racism and stop the murders of innocent African-American men and women.
All of these tragic deaths, by the pandemic and by the police, WILL END!