Words cannot express the terror and trauma I experienced as I looked into the eyes of Officer Chauvin as he shamelessly murdered George Floyd in front of witnesses filming him.
No type of police reform will change the actions of individual officers with a depraved heart like his. No law will change the malicious actions of the Amy Coopers of the world who make false charges against black-skinned men because they refuse to cower under the power of their white skin. And no law will stop white-skinned bigots in trucks with shotguns who hunt down and kill black-skinned men for suspicion of an unknown crime. Why do I say this? There are already laws that prohibit these types of lawless behaviors. But because black skin doesn't carry the same value in this country as white skin, rarely do these perpetrators receive any type of punishment for their actions.
The viewed murder of George Floyd seen around the world and the massive protests that followed have forced apathetic white-skinned people to acknowledge that police brutality of black-skinned people in this country is real. This terrifying awakening has led to the pulling down of confederate statues, removing the confederate flag as a symbol of NASCAR, and major corporations putting out statements “claiming” they support diversity in the workplace. Yet, it’s not enough to change America’s disdain of black-skinned people. If laws and protests could change the evil in men’s heart there would have been no need for Christ to come.
Black-skinned people have been protesting injustices since the 1st captured Africans jumped to their deaths from slave ships into the murky waters of the Atlantic Ocean rather than being enslaved by a barbaric group of white-skinned people in a strange land. Slave revolts, the Civil War, boycotts, the NAACP, and the Civil Rights Movement; the gains these protests brought, covert laws were enacted to counteract those gains (lynch mobs, Jim Crow, black codes, false imprisonment, setting fire to and destroying Black homes and businesses, the 1919 state-sanctioned massacre of black-skinned people across the nation, school & healthcare inequality, redlining, gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc., etc.).
Notice in this article I use the term “white-skinned” and “black-skinned” but not races. There is only one race, the Human Race. The myth of races, and the lies that native Americans are dangerous savages, and black-skinned people are half-human/half-animal were created by colonists to justify the murder and chattel enslavement of people who didn’t look and live like them. This was done for the purpose of seizing their land and creating free labor to work the land for monetary gain.
To this day, the myth of race continues to be a profit tool for corporations (for-profit prisons), banks (higher-interest mortgages & loans), and the criminal justice system (school-to-prison pipeline, ridiculous fines for non-criminal activities such as sitting in a parked car without a seatbelt on, and jay-walking).
Racism is used to divide and conquer by billionaires and their “bought” politicians and media outlets. Terms such as democrats (for black-skinned people), republicans (for white-skinned people), liberal (the poor, government-assisted programs), and conservative (the rich, anti-poor, anti-minorities, anti-immigrants) are used to keep us divided. If we’re fighting each other we lose sight of the real enemy and destroy ourselves.
The wealth of this country was built by “deceitful and incurably sick(-hearted)” people (Jer. 17:9-10 CJB). Therefore, it shouldn’t be a surprise that this same type of people sits in various seats of government where they continue to carry out a reign of terror on black-skinned people.
The current administration has had 4 years to make America great, again? Adding fuel to the smoldering fires of racism, classism, and sexism is pushing the country toward implosion.
America tries to cure itself of racism but refuses to remove the structures that allow racism to fester. The only way this country can move toward greatness is to tear down what is and build a union that’s inclusive to all Americans.
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