HOW TOXIC MASCULINITY HELPED KILL GEORGE FLOYD

THE topic of toxic masculinity comes up more in conversations about #MeToo than about Black Lives Matter, understandably so.

Cop machismo is an important way of understanding police violence against people of colour. It helps explain why Derek Chauvin pressed his knee against George Floyd’s neck – continuing for two minutes after Floyd’s pulse stopped – and why three other officers chose to keep the crowd at bay rather than save Floyd’s life.

Much commentary on the broken relationship between police and African-Americans focuses on anti-Black bias and structural discrimination. While it’s hard to overstate the role that race plays in policing, gender matters too. Legal scholar Frank Rudy Cooper has described encounters between the police and African-Americans as “Who’s the man?” contests. Some cops perform their masculinity by showing off their power and control over black bodies.

“Dude, act like a man.” That’s what a Minneapolis police officer told Floyd when he was arrested in May 2019 – a year before his fatal encounter with Chauvin. On both occasions, officers approached Floyd’s car, drew their guns, pointed them at Floyd and ordered him out of the car.

Floyd’s reaction to both arrests was to burst into tears and call for his mother.

Floyd was not a macho dude. In the hood, they called him the “gentle giant”.

But that’s not a space that black men get to inhabit in the public imagination. We don’t get to be soft or vulnerable. When cops point guns at us, we don’t get to be traumatised.

Thus Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill will not allow the jury to hear expert testimony from a forensic psychiatrist to demonstrate that Floyd’s experiences with police officers had impacted his mental health. Prosecutors wanted to show that Floyd’s reluctance to get into a squad car was not resisting arrest, but a legitimate fear based violent encounters with police.

But Cahill ruled that Floyd’s mental state was not relevant, although in the same decision he said the jury can hear testimony that, on the day of the 2019 arrest, Floyd consumed illegal drugs.

“Three Minneapolis police officers could not overcome the strength of Mr Floyd,” Eric Nelson (Chauvin’s lawyer) said in his opening statement. Cue “excited delirium,” which Nelson raised in cross-examination of medical experts last week.

It’s a term that defence attorneys use more than doctors. They typically use it when they are trying to justify violence against black people. William Smock, a forensic medicine specialist, told Nelson that most medical associations didn’t recognise the condition, but he defined it as a “physical and psychiatric state where, because of an imbalance in the brain, a patient will exhibit multiple symptoms”, including superhuman strength.

The final moments of Floyd’s life included a tragic conversation between him and Charles McMillian, an older African-American man who told Floyd to do what the police told him, saying: “You can’t win.”

“I am not trying to win,” were the last words Floyd said to anyone.

“Who’s the man?” contests are not contests in any meaningful sense. The police always win – at least in the short term. They have the guns and the authority of the law. But for bullying police officers intent on acting like men, too much power is never enough.