George Floyd

In May 2020, George Floyd, a black man, was apparently murdered while handcuffed by police in Minneapolis.  Bystanders caught the killing on videotape, which was then shown, repeatedly, on national television.  Never before had an actual murder been shown to so many people. 

The immediate effect of the media’s decision to shove Mr. Floyd’s murder into our faces for days was a series of protests that may well lead to some long-needed reforms.  That the protests were infiltrated by looters, vandals, thugs, and rioters distracted from the message does not completely negate this hopeful fact. 

Seeing this murder again and again and again, followed by “Black Lives Matter” leaves the impression that murder of black people by police is a routine thing.  Logic, along with familiarity with the media’s propensity for anything to stir up racial animosity, tells us otherwise, but the gut feeling we get from seeing this murder repeatedly does not go away.