“I can’t breathe!!…”
— That’s what George Floyd, an unarmed African American man, repeatedly told a white Minneapolis police officer who pinned him to the ground last Monday with a knee to his neck. Within less than an agonizing nine minutes, George Floyd was dead. He leaves behind a six-year-old daughter, a large family and many friends in both Minneapolis and Houston that loved him.
FAMILY AND LEADERS SPEAK OUT ON THE MURDER OF MR. GEORGE FLOYD
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“Legal lynching is the worst form of human nature.”
Rev. Jesse Jackson
“We’ve got to have permanent, deep systemic change.”
Keith Ellison, Minnesota Attorney General
Introduction by Elizabeth V. Hallett
Executive Director, Peace House
This week, if there was any mask on the nature of racism in the United States, it was ripped off once and for all by the unavoidable and sickening images of George Floyd being pinned under the knee of a white police officer, for just under nine agonizing minutes, in broad daylight with ordinary citizens recording this on their cell phones, until Mr. Loyd became unresponsive and died.
If anyone has been trying to avoid the cold truth of racism in this country, that will no longer be possible. The whole world sees it now. This murder was a modern-day lynching. My guess is that only a few Americans have not known what we are dealing with, though many among us have found ways to be in denial about it. I believe that the rest of the world has known for decades or, historically, for centuries.
We must face the gaslighting, the pretense, and find ways to heal this horror. There have been countless murders of this kind before this.
Peace House stands with those who call out what the Minneapolis City Council Vice President, Andrea Jenkins, names “a disease, a virus”, that has infected America, in which we must declare a State of Emergency, where racism is a public health issue. Indeed, as she reminds us, our country was founded on this disease. Now we must find ways to heal ourselves and our country to be rid of it, if we are to survive as a nation. Andrea Jenkins’s words are included in the voices compiled below. We are in a sacred moment as a country with opportunities for creative and life-saving change. Please listen to their understanding and their prayers for equity, nonviolence and redemption of our current social and legal systems.
Over the last week, they have spoken out to address this virus of racism, that comes in a perfect storm with the COVID-19 pandemic.
There are indications that white supremacists have been involved in the riots that followed the death of George Loyd on May 25th. We will need to examine this carefully.
We have much work to do.
On behalf of the Peace House Board Chair, Dr. Jim Phillips and our Board of Directors, I write to say that we offer our sorrow, our condolences to the families of George Floyd, Ahman Arbury, and Breanna Taylor – who are only the most recent victims of paranoia and entitlement – and our guarantee to stand with those who call out this violence to human dignity, to human life and to our society as a whole. We owe this to George Floyd, Ahman, Breanna and many other such martyrs. We owe this to each other, to our children and our grandchildren.
Elizabeth V. Hallett
Executive Director, Peace House
5/30/20
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“I loved my brother. Everybody loved my brother. Knowing my brother is to love my brother. They could have tased him. They could have maced him. Instead, they put their knee in his neck and just sat on him, and then carried on. He screamed, “Mama! Mama! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” And they didn’t care. So, I don’t — I just don’t understand what more we’ve got to go through in life, man. They didn’t have to do that to him.”
Philonise Floyd, brother of George Floyd
Philonise Floyd said on Thursday that he had watched the video, taken by a witness, of his brother being forcibly held down on the ground while handcuffed by the police, after they attempted to arrest him on suspicion of using a counterfeit bill in a store last Monday, May 25th.
“He could not breathe, and no one cares,” his brother said on Thursday. He broke down crying after saying: “My family will never see him again, his kids will never see him again.” (5/28/20)
He later said: “It was hard, but I had to watch the video and as I watched, these four officers they executed my brother. And the paramedics, they dragged him across the ground without administering CPR, they showed him no empathy, no humanity.”
The Guardian, 5/29/20
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/may/28/george-floyd-brother-death-police
https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd
“On May 25, 2020, my life shattered as I learned of the tragic passing of my dear brother, George.
My family and I watched in absolute horror as the now infamous and horrifying video began to spread quickly throughout social media. What we saw on that tape left us shell shocked; a white Minneapolis police officer kneeling directly on my brother’s neck, obstructing his ability to breathe. As some officers knelt on his neck, other officers participated and watched; no one took any action to save my brother’s life. Those officers would continue to brutalize my brother until he died. This fund is established to cover funeral and burial expenses, mental and grief counseling, lodging and travel for all court proceedings, and to assist our family in the days to come as we continue to seek justice for George. A portion of these funds will also go to the Estate of George Floyd for the benefit and care of his children and their educational fund.”
Anyone wishing to send cards, letters of encouragement and/or contributions in the form of a money order or check, may do so by mail at:
The Estate of George Floyd
c/o Ben Crump Law, PLLC
122 S. Calhoun Street
Tallahassee, FL 32301
Attn: Adner Marcelin
“I am asking my colleagues, the mayor and anyone else who is concerned about the state of affairs in our community, to declare a state of emergency declaring racism as a public health issue. Until we name this virus, this disease that has infected America for the past 400 years, we will never, ever resolve this issue.”
Andrea Jenkins, Vice-President of the Minneapolis City Council
5/27/20
“Whatever the investigation reveals, it does not change the simple truth that he should be with us this morning. I believe what I saw, and what I saw was wrong at every level. … Being Black in America should not be a death sentence. For five minutes, we watched as a white officer pressed his knee into the neck of a Black man. For five minutes. When you hear someone calling for help, you are supposed to help. This officer failed in the most basic human sense. “
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey
5/27/20
https://www.axios.com/minneapolis-george-floyd-racism-public-health-568de687-8d57-411f-96c1-2420114f2327.html
Excerpt from an interview with Dr. Ibram Kendi by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! 5/28/20
AMY GOODMAN: [ Today……] We’re joined by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, professor of history and international relations, founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University, National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, his latest book, How to Be an Antiracist. His forthcoming children’s book is titled Antiracist Baby.
….Can you respond to the killing of George Floyd?
IBRAM X. KENDI: I mean, I think, like so many Americans, so many Black Americans, in particular, I’m just completely outraged. And it’s certainly the case, as the mayor said, that when we cry out for help, other human beings should seek to help us. But, essentially, the job of a police officer is to listen to those calls for help, is not to be our executioners. And so, the fact that a police officer did not hear the cry for help, that’s more — that’s even worse than any of us. We’re not sworn to protect. We’re not trained to hear those cries. But police officers are. And so, to me, you know, I’m outraged, like so many people who care about Black lives.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to read Bernice King’s tweet, the youngest child of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. She tweeted a picture of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin with his knee on the neck of George Floyd, next to a picture of Colin Kaepernick taking a knee to peacefully protest deaths like this, for which he’s banned from the NFL.
AMY GOODMAN: Next to the pictures, King wrote, quote:
“If you’re unbothered or mildly bothered by the 1st knee, but outraged by the 2nd, then, in my father’s words, you’re ‘more devoted to order than to justice,’” ….“And more passionate about an anthem that supposedly symbolizes freedom than you are about a Black man’s freedom to live.” That was her final part of that tweet. Dr. Kendi, talk about that.
IBRAM X. KENDI: Oh, I just think it was a powerful, powerful statement and speaking certainly not only to her father’s legacy, but even Dr. King — Dr. Bernice King’s analysis of the situation. I mean, fundamentally, Colin Kaepernick was kneeling for the freedom to live, you know, for the freedom to have equity, even for the freedom, as he would, I suspect, say now, from infection. I mean, you know, Black people ….we were running from racist terror, only to run into the face of COVID-19, only to run from COVID-19 into the face of racist terror.
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/5/27/george_floyd_killing_minneapolis_police
Dr. Bernice Albertine King
Transcript of Dr. Bernice King from above video
I want to thank the mayor for calling us together. This is a tough moment and if I might take one liberty, to say:
I’ve obviously been in the place of the daughter or George; a six-year-old, left without her Daddy, who was killed senselessly, as my father was assassinated, senselessly. And it sent me on a journey of anger, and I fought that demon a long time.
And this is a moment, when people are feeling a lot of stuff right now and are fed up and as I stand in this moment and I look at my journey, I have to make an appeal to my brothers and sisters, because I realize that the only way to get constructive change is through nonviolent means.
You know, a lot of people have been using my father’s words.
Sometimes I get a little upset when people do that and co-opt those words and take them out of context.
But I realize that he gave his life for this nation. He was a son of this this city, born on the soils of this city – on Auburn Avenue, but he said to us: “Riots are the language of the unheard.”
And the part we often miss, when people use it, is the part about the unheard.
This is a time when we all have to listen now. We have to listen to the cries that are coming out of the hearts and the souls my young brothers and sisters and all of the others that are in the streets of America right now, and in our city.
But if there is anything I can say to them, as they cry out it’s to look at the changes, because the changes have to happen. We can’t go back to yesterday. We can’t keep doing thing like we’ve been doing it., in this nation. We’ve got to deal with systemic racism and white supremacy once and for all.
But the only pathway I know to do this is through nonviolent means. It is a proven method. It did not fail my father and them. There are many people that think it failed my father and them, but it did not fail them.
Because one thing about it, is when you really think about it and really practice it, it brings about the results. So right now, it’s about: what is the end goal? The end goal is: “We want change and we want it now,” but change never comes through violence. It is not a solution. Violence, in fact, presents more problems. It is not a solution.
[The] Nonviolent Way is the way, because the means and the ends have to be consistent. We will never get to the end of justice and equity and true peace, which is not merely the absence of tension, but the presence of justice, unless we do it through nonviolent means.
And so, I’m just speaking from my heart now, and saying:
I feel you. Trust me, I feel you!
I’ve been close to the edge this time, but I can’t go back to all that I felt inside and the rage that was inside that wanted me to destroy people and destroy lives, as Martin Luther King’s daughter. Because I know, that the only way get what we want and really get it, and not just crumbs, is through nonviolence and peace, and so please, let’s stay focused in that way. And remember everybody is not on the same page. There are people who will try to start a race war in this country. Let’s not fall into their hands and into their trap.
There’s another way. And so in the name of Martin Luther King Jr., from the soils of Atlanta, Georgia and from the five-year-old girl who lost her Daddy to gun violence, senselessly – at the hands of law enforcement – let’s do this in the peaceful and nonviolent way, to deal with the evils and the conditions of our time.
But I will say, as he did in his “I Have a Dream Speech”:
“If we go back to business as usual, we’re gonna be in trouble.” Let’s not go back to business as usual. Let’s deal with these issues that people are crying out of their soul and their spirit: the conditions that have led to this kind of action.”
Thank you.
Dr. Bernice King:https://www.fox5atlanta.
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms: https://www.cnn.com/
Dr. Bernice Albertine King (born March 28, 1963) is an American minister and the youngest child of civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. She was five years old when her father was assassinated. She is CEO of The King Center, a Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, GA.
