God uses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise.
He lifts up the lowly from the valley and sets them on the hilltop of recognition.
Thousands of black people — many more prominent than George Perry Floyd, Jr., have been murdered by the police over the years.
But this one death ignited protests in 75 American cities and in major cities across Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, South America, Antarctica, and Australia.
What horrified the world most was the sight of policeman, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Floyd’s neck for the whole of eight minutes and forty-six seconds, despite the fact that Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down.
“I can’t breathe”, cried Floyd, but Chauvin and his three other colleagues at the scene ignored the death throes of their quarry.
Before he finally expired, Floyd’s agonised voice called out to his late mother.
Rev. Al Sharpton interpreted that to mean that Floyd must have been seeing his mum as he crossed from mortality to eternity.
The world later found out that Floyd and Chauvin knew each other for several years when they were co-workers at the El Nuevo Rodeo nightclub in Minneapolis and had a history of friction.
You have to be subhuman to rationalise Floyd’s execution.
To justify what happened, you have to convince yourself that the 46-year-old father of five was less than human and expendable.
What if Floyd wasn’t exactly Angel Gabriel?
Does Bingo, the scavenging, flea-ridden mongrel in the slum of suburbia, not deserve a better end?
What started as a peaceful protest in Minneapolis soon degenerated into arson and a looting spree in many American cities with hundreds of businesses and shops affected.
After tweeting his condolences, President Trump threatened to unleash the military against looters: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” — echoing a phrase by former Florida police chief, Walter E. Headley.
Trust Trump to add insult to injury!
In not being able to breathe, George Floyd, a kind of sacrificial lamb, has now enabled many people of colour in America to breathe.
Young white people have claimed co-ownership of the Black Lives Matter campaign.
How do racist parents tackle their own children who insist that justice and inclusiveness are the only way to peace?
Racism in America is systemic.
Blacks are only 12% of the US population but account for more prisoners than whites who are 70% of the population?
The slave trade may have ended 150 years ago but the descendants of former slaves are still enslaved by the racist system in a country they helped to build.
Listen to Marley:
I and I build a cabin;
I and I plant the corn;
Didn’t my people before me
Slave for this country?
Now you look me with that scorn,
Then you eat up all my corn….
Marley’s echoing of Haile Sellasie’s prophecy rings aloud: “Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war.
And until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation, until the colour of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes.
And until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race, there is war….”
And in case some dumbheads still blinded by ignorance, guilt or denial still can’t understand that the issue at hand is larger than George Floyd, here’s multiple award-winning poet, Niyi Osundare’s verse aptly titled, “I Can’t Breathe”.
I can’t breathe…
There are countless ways
Of lynching without a rope…
My skin is my sin,
Sings Bluesman with the wailing strings,
My very life is an “underlying condition”
For countless afflictions…
There is a common crime in town:
Breathing While Black (BWB) …
Mr. George Floyd committed two cardinal crimes:
He was Black
He was big…
Black Life Martyrs,
Their voices rise from their untimely graves:
Amadu Diallo, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Botham Jean, Breanna Taylor, Philando Castille, Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd. . . . .
Any Hall of Fame
For Trophies from Police hunts?
…And the Emperor snarls
From the bunker of his White Castle
Vowing “vicious dogs and ominous weapons”
Rolling in guns to “dominate the streets”
His unhappy nation now his “battlespace”
Black Lives Matter
Black Life Martyrs
Asked Louis Armstrong, the smiling Trumpetman:
What did I do to be so black and blue?
Floyd’s death has now catalysed some immediate changes
Minneapolis has now banned the use of chokeholds. Officer Chauvin and his three accomplices have been arrested and charged.
Police brutality captured on cameras has led to suspensions and firing of officers in Buffalo, Ft. Lauderdale , etc. Monuments celebrating confederates have been removed in cities in Virginia, Alabama, and other states.
New Jersey’s attorney general said the state plans to update its use-of-force guidelines for the first time in two decades.
More than ever before, white people are coming out to condemn racism and the unjust system of policing in the US.
Los Angeles City Council has introduced a motion to reduce LAPD’s $1.8 billion operating budget….
It is morning yet in the fight against racism and the quest of Black people for basic human rights in America.
The road may be long and rough. But there is no stopping an idea whose time is overdue.
The stone rejected by the builders has become the cornerstone. Ain’t that awesome!
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