George Floyd was murdered. It was proven in a court by a jury of Derek Chauvin’s peers. George Floyd is not the only black man or woman killed by police because of the color of their skin, and he won’t be the last. As a society, it was our duty to talk about that and it is our duty to get better.
But if I saw a video of a girl about to slash my daughter with a knife, and the cop had a chance to stop her with a bullet but did not, I would be VERY upset at that cop. Protect and serve means sometimes somebody is going to get hurt or killed because a cop was protecting an innocent person.
We’ve got to have two concurrent conversations. The first: no black person better die another death because of a power hungry or racist cop. The second: start a dialogue in our communities, schools, and churches, and frame that conversation around how to live another day by not resisting arrest, not attacking cops, not cussing and yelling at cops, etc. I’m not saying that they don’t have a reason to be mad if they feel they have been targeted, but I’d much rather them be alive tomorrow and have a safe place to go report what happened. And yes, I know it’s REALLY easy for a white man to say that. But I would much rather black men and women be pissed off and offended than dead. We can deal with pissed off and offended.
99% of cops are good people doing it for the right reasons, and the whole “defund the police” movement was one of the worst social justice stances you could possibly take. Dissecting the actual message, however, and introducing forms of assistance to cops such as more mental health counselors and getting them more involved in community outreach, are both excellent ideas that cops would probably embrace. And instead of defund the police, let’s pour a little more money in their pots when they are proactive about some social justice advancements that help ALL parties.
Original source can be found here.
