A burned out building in Minneapolis crystallizes the burning rage of much of America in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Photograph by Fibonacci Blue.
The great comedian Red Skelton acidly remarked of the well-attended funeral of tyrannical movie boss Harry Cohn, “Well, it just goes to show you: Give the people what they want and they’ll turn out for it.”
President Donald J. Trump has given the people what they didn’t want — American carnage — and they’ve turned out for it. anyway. Boy, have they turned out for it. Protesters from sea to shining sea this weekend have made the tiki torches of the white supremacists .who terrorized Charlottesville in 2017 look like candles in the wind. (I wonder if Trumpet is measuring the size of these crowds.)
To be sure, this is about the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers who took him into custody and crushed the life out of him — the straw that broke the camel’s back of black America. But that is just the tip of the Titanic-sinking iceberg. This is also about three and a half long years of a botched pandemic response that has left more than 100,000 dead and 40 million without jobs, most of these people of color; of white nationalists being called “very fine people,”; of “good and bad on both sides” at Charlottesville,; of immigrant children in cages at the southern border, of women being referred to as dogs and rated fours on a scale of one to 10 and being scoffed at for the peaceful Pussyhat Project and #MeToo movements; of tax cuts for the rich and tax increases for the not-so-rich.
This is about three and a half long years of demonizing the Democrats, the blue states, the sanctuary cities and the members of the antifa, or anti-fascist movement, who stood up heroically to the white supremacists in Charlottesville. Most of all, this is about three and a half years of marginalizing the majority of a nation for and by a majority of one. And it feels damn good.
That isn’t to say it is damn good. Burning and looting in revenge are never the answers to injustice, because you’re just cutting off your nose to spite your face. My heart breaks for those young Mexican-American women who wandered around their looted store in a daze but said they understood why it happened. Or the South Korean immigrant who said through tears that he would rebuild his trashed hip-hop clothing store, because his customers were nice people. I agree with Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who invoked the memory of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent protests. You’re only spiting yourself if you destroy your community.
One African-American man took her message to heart and brought his family to help with the cleanup. He told a TV reporter he wanted his children to experience the right thing to do.
These are our fellow citizens. And, as Sen. Kamala Harris said, they’re in pain. Many have asked on the internet and in gatherings, Why haven’t people been taking to the streets of Trump’s America daily?
They are now.