Shocking yet all-too-familiar story in George Floyd’s death
“I can’t breathe.”
A minute into watching a video of George Floyd dying on a Minneapolis street, pleading for mercy, asking for air in what’s become an all too familiar request of black men faced off against white power — my breath had been taken hostage, halted by disbelief. My eyes were cuffed to a startling video of a white Minneapolis police officer with his knee on the black neck of Floyd as he begged for air. Onlookers said blood oozed from Floyd’s nose and urine allegedly soaked his trousers then trickled onto 38th Street and Chicago Avenue, the site where the incident occurred.
Apparently, revelations that a person witnesses bright lights or sees his life flash before him during the final moments of breath taking, omit the part about pissing yourself or worse.
“Being black in America should not be a death sentence,” Minneapolis’s mayor, Jacob Frey, said. “For five minutes, we watched a white officer press his knee into a black man’s neck. Five minutes.”
Save the platitudinal “Being black in America should not be a death sentence.” Myriad black experiences in America represent truncated existences, lives cut short by violence delivered by illegally-armed gunmen who look like us or those sworn in as protectors and servers.
Being black in America offers the negative paralleled position to being white in America.
From the west side of California to New York City’s Upper East Side, Life is all right in America — if you are Caucasian in America.
Being black means being stopped and frisked or being frustrated by a litany of inequities attached to skin color. Being black while driving in America, jogging in America or simply being in America tethers suspicion.
It’s enough to make a black man drink Clorox bleach for an ending to this madness or rub the whitener into our skin for a lighter complexion.
Being white, even light-skinned in America, offers a free pass, leeway, and largesse. Black? Not so much.
We are back at this place again, returned to this point in time for another discussion about race relations, excessive police force and the deterioration of trust between citizens and police. Frey supported Chief Medaria Arradondo’s firing of the officers.
“It is the right decision for our city. The right decision for our community, it is the right decision for the Minneapolis Police Department.”
Police engaged Floyd, 46, after responding to a forgery in progress. They found Floyd seated inside his vehicle. Police alleged Floyd resisted arrest which led to his takedown.
Several passers by attempted intervention even challenged police about their behavior. Floyd, meanwhile, begged for help.
“Please, please, please, I can’t breathe,” Floyd said. “My stomach hurts. My neck hurts. Please, please. I can’t breathe.”
Frey, distressed by his reconstruct of events noted a police officer’s duty to protect.
“When you hear someone calling for help, you are supposed to help. This officer failed in the most basic human sense. What happened on Chicago and 38th this last night is simply awful. It was traumatic and it serves as a clear reminder of just how far we have to go”, Frey offered. He said Floyd’s life mattered.
“He was a human being and what all of us saw on that video was wrong in every sense. It was horrid. This officer failed in the most basic, human sense.”
Frey provided comments via Twitter and a Mayor’s Town Hall appearance.
Agents from the FBI and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) launched an investigation into possible civil rights violations.
Neither agency could restore life as being black in America delivered another death sentence — Floyd ran out of time and breath.