I don't know how many people watched the memorial but the part where they asked every to stand for the period of time that Chauvin had his knee on Floyd was very powerful and really gave a sense of how long this was. You could see in the crowd people start fidgetting after a minute or two.
okay, let me say I’m okay with the internet destroying that choad’s life over a short video. He done. unless that was you, @Senator ?
Sharing here some of my personal thoughts regarding George Floyd's life. I listened to today's memorial service for George Floyd and attended my neighborhood's memorial for him. A few days ago, I went to where he was killed. I didn't know George Floyd and as far as I can tell didn't have any connections but my life and his were literally not that far apart and paralleled each other. George Floyd and I were close in age and we both came from Houston to Minneapolis. He grew up in the Third Ward of Houston, one of the poorest neighborhoods and an overwhelmingly black neighborhood. I grew up about five miles away in a neighborhood called Southside Place an upper middle class neighborhood and an overwhelmingly white neighborhood. The University of Houston and Texas Southern University are in one corner of the Third Ward and my mom taught at both schools so I would go through the Third Ward. The Third Ward though wasn't a place that I went to socialize, shop or spend anytime other than at my mother's work. I doubt that George Floyd spent much time in my neighborhood. George Floyd went to Jack Yates High School. A school that had been a colored high school under segregation and was named after a former slave. I went to Mirabeau B. Lamar a school named after the Secessionist second President of the Republic of Texas with students from some of the richest neighborhoods in the US. Yates was an athletic powerhouse with a great marching band. Lamar was known for great academics and was the first school to have an IB Program in Houston. It also reeked of money and preppiness. George and I represented two parts of Houston. I was the son of a new wave of immigrants coming to America for opportunity. We were allowed to participate in and to a certain extent welcomed into white culture and society. George was part of people that had to live in the Third World because they weren’t allowed to anywhere else and now couldn’t afford to live anywhere else. People like me were the face of the New South. George Floyd in many ways was still dealing with the Old South. That difference between might've had much to do with how our lives turned out. We took very different routes to coming to Minneapolis. I graduated in the top tier of my class. I went to Cal with classmates going to other elite schools. For us success was expected, and we were already on our way. After he graduated George went to a community college in Florida for a couple of years only to return to Houston. He worked doing automotive detailing and found some local success as a rapper. He also ran into trouble with the law getting arrested for drug possession and theft. In the meantime, my only trouble with the law was during an anti-war protest and speeding tickets. Things got bad for George when he was arrested for armed robbery involving a home invasion with a pregnant woman. He ended up doing five years in prison and after he got out of prison came to Minneapolis for a new start. Minneapolis for me was also something of a new start as after I graduated from Cal I had moved to Boston and after what I consider a lost year of my life came here for grad school and have been here for more than 20 years now. George Floyd by most accounts had a good life here and loved Minnesota. I have led a good life here but even though I’ve been here longer I’ve still always felt tied to Houston. While we didn’t know each other it wouldn’t surprise me if we had met at some time as I’ve been several times to the Congo Latin Bistro where he worked security and El Nuevo Rodeo the other club he worked at is in my neighborhood. George came north for a new start but in many ways the same divides that existed in Houston exist here in Minnesota too. Looking at my circle of friends and associates it is mostly white and Asian and mostly in the middle class. George Floyd probably had a more diverse circle of friends here than in Houston but far more black than my circle. I’ve made a living as an architect. George was a driver and a bouncer. In many ways we have followed the pattern that was laid out for and expected of us in high school. When we graduated high school I was a nerdy middle class Asian. He was a large poor black man. I’m now an urban professional who can afford to take vacations around the World. George Floyd is an ex con who died under the knee of a policeman. I didn’t know George Floyd but I would’ve liked to. I would’ve liked to have talked to him about food in Houston, about how he was adapting to Minnesota winters and about the Houston Rockets. There is an American belief that we largely write our own history and that we can always change yet looking at the different fates of George and I how much is that really true? Looking back on my life and George’s I’m trying to imagine how things might’ve turned out so that it would be George writing this now and me killed by law enforcement on the streets of Minneapolis. Maybe both of us were long ago already trapped in a system that cost George his life.
Slight correction to my above post. Found out this morning that I do have a friend in common with George Floyd. A friend who is an architect and also a classmate at CAL was a friend of Floyd's Also regarding Juxtaposition Arts Center that group also has an architecture program mentoring black youth interested in architecture that I've been a part of. https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/06/04/us/04reuters-minneapolis-police-black-biz-owner.html Black Architect Who Knew George Floyd Hopes to Rebuild a More Just Twin Cities By Reuters ST. PAUL, Minn. — George Floyd's death in Minneapolis while in police custody, and the destruction that followed during demonstrations throughout the region, cut especially deep for Saint Paul architect James Garrett Jr., a fifth-generation black resident of Minnesota's Twin Cities. The 48-year-old Garrett, whose grandfather was Saint Paul's first black deputy police chief, said he was committed to helping rebuild his community, the state's capital city. Civil disturbances and looting have marred demonstrations in the Twin Cities since Floyd's death two weeks ago during an encounter with four Minneapolis police officers. "The challenge for us is how do we not just replace what was lost but create a more equitable ... resilient" community, said Garrett, one of the founders of 4RM+ULA, a Saint Paul architecture firm focused on community development projects. "That is driving me and that is how I am trying to center myself within the maelstrom," he said, adding he is "obsessed" with creating a more just community through architecture. "These are growing pains as a society that we have to go through to get to a better place." A video circulated that showing Floyd's death while an officer knelt on his neck hit Garrett especially personally. He used to see the 46-year-old Floyd often and knew him as "Big Floyd," the doorman at one of his favorite restaurants, Conga Latin Bistro. "Seeing what happened to him is a reminder that but for the grace of God, it could have been me," said Garrett, adding he knew immediately that unrest could follow Floyd's death. "I felt the anger," he said. "I was very aware that this city could burn." Then vandals set fire to a former auto dealership his firm is turning into an arts center. "It went to another level for me when this building was attacked," said Garrett, standing outside of the boarded up building. Thanks to a fire suppression system and flame r****dant carpeting, the building suffered only cosmetic damage and will become the home to Springboard For The Arts. Another of his firm's projects that suffered damage was the Juxtaposition Arts New Art Center, a youth arts organization. "In my wildest dreams, I never thought buildings and organizations that represent people and community and positive engagement would be targeted," he said. Garrett said his "heart aches" especially for formerly incarcerated men in his community who live at Great River Landing, a supportive housing project his firm designed. "Those guys are completely traumatized," he said, noting that many have personally experienced violent arrests. (This story has been refiled to fix typographical error in headline) (Reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Saint Paul, Minnesota; Editing by David Gregorio)
This level of brutality to people exercising their first amendment rights to peacefully assemble and protest is both disheartening and disturbing.
BLM is a racist organization, that exists largely to promote racism in this country. For example, here is video of some racist BLM person attacking three women and calling THEM racists for cleaning BLM graffiti off of a federal building in the aftermath of the race riots earlier this week. This BLM woman and her BLM group are incendiary racists, literally, as we saw in full color over this last week. They are also aggressively deceitful, gaslighting a-holes of the very worst kind. These people are extremely nasty people and examples of the very worst that humanity has to offer. Antifa people have shown that they are at least as bad as these BLM people and probably even worse, if that is actually possible.
With that train of thought, the Republican party is racist because I saw some racist Republicans. Rather than frame this response that way: Do you think that black people are superior to, equal to or inferior to white people? Why? Black lives matter means that a black person's life is as valuable as a white person's life and it should not be casually taken away. This does not require discrimination against non-blacks.
B.S. The idea that we are divided into different races based on variances in our skin pigmentation is patently absurd. That is in fact what racism fundamentally is and it is what racists do. They divide people arbitrarily into different "races" and then pit those groups against each other. People who are not racists recognize the truth and that is that there is only one race, the human race. There is no superiority or inferiority based anyone's "race," as we are all members of the same race. All lives matter. That includes the lives of everyone, with no exceptions. We are all related by blood if we go back far enough. That is a fact. As a result, I am related by blood to everyone alive and so are you. In fact, you and I and everyone here on this board are related by blood.
That's an awfully long way to say don't judge a person by the color of their skin which might be one of the most progressive posts you've ever made here.
B.S. again. My post is conservative and Christian. It is not "Progressive" at all. "Progressives" are in fact deeply regressive and deeply divisive, especially when it comes to the topic of "race". These recent race riots were a testimony to this fact. These riots have been actively enabled and supported by elected Democrat party leaders, including governors, at least one state attorney general, a number of mayors and others. A number of them have associations with Antifa. The Democrat governors have created a "Safe space" for rioting, looting, assault, vandalism, etc. They value "Political correctness" above anything and everything else in our country, with no exceptions. This includes the US Constitution - the central guiding document that ALL of these people and all of us have sworn to uphold and defend. It is this document that binds us and makes us one country. Literally. Now we have a number of leaders who have adopted a different sort of guiding principles based on "Political correctness," which they have clearly demonstrated that they regard as superior to the US Constitution. These principles in this case (they are not fixed and do change rapidly as circumstances change) recognize their racist "Identity politics" hierarchy as being far more important than maintaining civil order or anything relating to the US Constitution. Until a week ago, the coronavirus was, according to the hysterical, panic promoting Democrat left, a health threat so dangerous that we needed to be locked in our homes and have our economy basically turned off in order to protect ourselves from it. If you dared to violate the lockdown or failed to conform to "social distancing" rules or wear a mask in public, then you were a supporter of killing people indiscriminately. Until a week ago, when the George Floyd murder story broke and the race riots began. Then all of that was quickly abandoned, because it turns out there is something that is more important than a worldwide plague that has been projected (wrongly) to kill people by the tens of millions, or more. Race politics and the right to protest the vile actions of a sadistic cop by looting, rioting and arson. Behavior which Democrat governors created "safe spaces" for, because it was the "Politically correct" thing to do. The constitutional responsibility of these governors to enforce the laws equally and protect the public safety, be damned. "Political correctness" was more important to these governors, mayors, state attorney generals and other elected politicians who enabled and supported this criminal mayhem. And they did it based on "race". Their actions were openly racist and they were in no way consistent with the ideas that I believe in, which you quoted above. Their racist behavior was "Progressive," however. That it certainly was.
@MojoMan Mojo your take still fits better with progressives and liberals then conservatives. I am glad your faith helps you to not judge people based on their skin tone.
Nah, color blindness might have been progress in 1960, but now color blindness is used to thwart proactive efforts to dismantle structures of institutional racism. By being blind to the color of the oppressed, @MojoMan can remain blind to the oppression itself. Black lives matter.
Black lives matter too. That is the point now isn’t it?. Throughout history of America black people was treated as a subpar race. The movement of the black lives matter is that black people should be treated equally. The strive for equality is the goal. For people like you who are threaten by is a reflection on you not BLM.
