The Murder of George Floyd

Most of us know the story, recently covered in the press:
A black man, George Floyd, is on the ground, face down, and handcuffed.  A white cop rests on top of him with his knee on Floyd's neck.  Floyd begs the cop to get off; he can't breath.
The cop doesn't move and George Floyd dies.  More precisely, he's killed.

Three things can be extrapolated from this murder.

1. For justice to prevail,  the cop who murdered George Floyd must be prosecuted in a timely manner.  Not yet indicted, the cops who stood around doing nothing while Mr. Floyd's life was being taken.  Justice requires that they be indicted for having done nothing to save Mr Floyd from the officer who murdered him.

2. We, as a society, should review our race relations in America.  From a historical perspective, we have made considerable progress.  Yet it must be acknowledged that we started at a very low place; namely, slavery.

The path up from slavery was not easy.  It took the war between the states and the many lives lost in that war.  But we were still nowhere near where a civilized nation should be. We were now in the time referred to as Jim Crow, a terrible time of segregation; a time of blacks being lynched, especially in America's south. The road from Jim Crow to where we are today, was long and not easy.

But here we are.  Men of color can be found at the pinnacle of corporate America.  They also serve as judges and in our military where they have served with valor and distinction, side by side with white service men.  However cultural differences remain.  In housing, the Irish will often live in Irish neighborhoods, Italians in Italian neighborhoods, Jews in Jewish neighborhoods. and Koreans in Korean neighborhoods.  But even there, the times are changing, with the advent of more blended marriages.

Have we arrived at nirvana?  Hardly; but although more progress is called for in race relations, we have reached a good lever.  Nevertheless, further progress remains to be made.

3. Despite our progress, there are forces that would drive us apart.  Let me throw out a name: Al Sharpton.  His disreputable approach to race relations goes back years; to the Tawana Brawley affair.  Then there was the incident in Brooklyn were  a young child of color dashed into a street from between two parked cars.  A car that was going up the street had no chance to react to the child as he darted out from between the cars.  He was hit and died.  This was a terrible accident but it was no crime.  Sharpton whipped up a demonstration a day or so later fanning a hatred of the Jewish community.  A young Jewish student from Australia was knifed to death as he watched a demonstration occasioned by the child's death.

Then there was the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.  We won't dwell on the thieving ways of young Mr. Brown.  Suffice it to say, he punched an officer sitting in his patrol car, and reached over, attempting to take his holstered service pistol.  Failing in that, Mr. Brown, who was well over 6 feet, weighing roughly 230 pounds and built like a linebacker, began walking down the middle of the street.  The officer, getting out of his patrol car, ordered him to stop.  With that, Mr. Brown lowered his head and charged the officer.

The officer had no option.  He shot the charging Mr. Brown.  A witness testified that Mr. Brown walked towards the officer with his head and arms raised high.  However, an autopsy made clear that Mr. Brown's head was lowered like that of a charging bull.

From this event in Ferguson,  Rev. Sharpton spun the tale of an innocent young man shot dead by a rogue cop.  He lead demonstrations in behalf of the dead youth and created an organization, he called "Black Lives Matter."

As a society, despite the progress we've made, we must do more to improve relations between blacks and whites.  But one barrier yet to be overcome are people like the Reverent Al Sharpton.

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