Bewildered and Angry

It has been eight days since three policemen in Minneapolis killed George Floyd.

We all saw the video.  We saw police officers take a restrained man’s life.  We heard him plead that he could not breath.  We saw the people videoing this heinous act pleading with the police not to kill him.  All to no avail.  It was horrible.  It was unconscionable.

Action was not taken until the protests started.  Protests that people spontaneously gathered to express their sorrow and indignation for the crime we all witnessed.  People gathered in numbers and crowds that defied all social distancing protocols.  We may see a resurgence of the virus, that is not even a news story these days, earlier than we expected.

In the midst for a pandemic, we have seen our country unravel even more.  It is very upsetting from any aspect I try to look at it.  It speaks to our inability to deal with racism and the inability of our leaders to do the right thing in terms of the looting.

The news is rife with stories of pallets of bricks and bottles showing up on the streets of our cities.  It is clearly the work of anarchists and agitators.  Fox News is sure it is leftists and MSNBC is equally sure it is right wing extremists.  Me?  I am hope It is not the work of the any government entities who believe their party or point of view will gain favor from the violent and looting parts of all this.  Law enforcement should be investigating who are working to create this chaos and arrest them. 

From what I can surmise, vast numbers of people are shocked and would like to see our country live up to the sentiment expressed in our Declaration of Independence:  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  The first amendment of the Constitution states:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”  The right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.  We have to live up to these ideals.

These principles were written when slavery was still legal in the south and women did not have the right to vote.  Over the years, we have generally come to believe that all men are created equal means all people are created equal.

Am I naïve?  Probably.  On May 1, I wrote Contagion:  Promise of Utopia?  A month later, I feel foolish for that naivete and I feel angry.  We are better than how we have handled the contagion and the killing of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery.   This is a stark reminder that we need to push education and invest in creating good jobs here for all Americans.  Only this will strike at the roots of racism which are poverty, disparities in education, the dismal standards of our education system, and a lack of any meaningful industrial policy.  This to me is the path to true equal opportunity.  We should be the shining example for the world and not what I am watching on television as I type this.

I pray that we can emerge from this and live up to the noble ideals we espouse.  Ten years from now, I hope that murder of George Floyd is looked upon as a turning point for this nation.