The one thing that united people of all races around the world during the 2020 George Floyd protest was the public’s witness of police brutality and blatant murder of a Black man by a white police officer. The injustice was felt by many other oppressed peoples in different countries and a division was growing between people haunted with a sense of justice and the tactlessness of authorities, regardless of the country.
Corporations, celebrities, governments of other nations spoke out against the United States’ treatment of Blacks by its police officers. Twenty-four-seven media streaming of protests around the world and riots in US cities brought to light an injustice Blacks have faced many years before George Floyd, but this time was different. The murder was brutal and obviously racial.
Politicians promised change. Change that would hold police accountable for their brutality along with new laws and policies that would address the issue of racial policing and police brutality overall, against all citizens. The solidarity was strong and there was every reason in the book to have hope for this change. But something happened and someone said something extremely stupid that blew away any chance of police reform.
In a haste to find a solution, the phrase “defund the police,” was blurted out of sheer desperation, presumably and hopefully by many, to solve the problem, or by someone who knew exactly what the consequences of those words would be; an exacerbation of hostilities that would snowball into full-blown chaos in police departments and a civil, race war within society.
To many people, it was believed that defund the police meant taking paychecks from police and having no police departments at all (which was way-over misinterpreted). Yet many understood its vague meaning to be, decrease funding to police and all military grade weaponry they have. Unfortunately, the former gained popular opinion and the latter was drowned out to its foolish and unlikeliness.
This led to a powerful talking point among pro-police citizens and organizations who grabbed a hold of the alternative media to spew lies about how the liberal party wanted crime to increase. This ideology in itself was asinine yet taken as gospel by the pro-police crowd and its followers. To follow behind this concept was animosity toward the criminal class, much of whom was considered Black people and those in poverty. Eventually bleeding over to anyone who protested police actions.
Instead, however, of taking checks from the police, laws were passed that enacted body cameras for police departments throughout the country, many whom resisted them at first. Yet, as a response to the camera’s, police begin to scale back their protections of minority communities to make it appear as though they had been defunded; all in a show of resentment and rebellion.
In a study done by Travis Campbell is an assistant professor of economics at Southern Oregon University, “his findings suggest that BLM protests prompted police departments to scale back their interactions with the public and adopt body cameras, leading to an increase in crime and a decrease in police killings.” But this observation by Campbell was inaccurate because police continued killing Black men after 2020, and still do.
The promises of police accountability have gone ignored since the introduction of body cams and the promises to retrain police have obviously gone unfulfilled. They continue to get away with murder more than not and no laws have been changed on qualified immunity for police officers. They can kill or brutalize a Black person and simply be placed on administrative leave with pay and then transfer to another department across the country.
As the years went by, the mainstream media absorbed the shadow of alternative media and began undermining the message of BLM and caving to the animosity of white backlash. Instead, BLM was under the scandal spotlight and was quieted; no longer have there been any widespread protest when a Black man is killed.
In fact, laws have been passed in many states that criminalize protest and even given citizens the right to run over protesters with their cars. And the media and politicians have not said or done a damn thing about it. The freedom of speech and assembly has been quietly abolished for Blacks and protesters.
As a result of the blacklist and indifference toward Blacks by the media and politicians, racial animosity has risen among whites as a force of covert brownshirt activity that police Blacks on their own. Karens and male Karens have popped up more often fingering Blacks for the stupidest activities, and when the police arrive if called, the Black person is always suspect and can possibly be killed for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, or basically just being Black.
This behavior is reminiscent of the Jim Crow era when whites could blame Blacks for anything and the police and the community would gather around to see a possible lynching. Blacks have been shot by white neighbors, chased, intimidated, harassed, and humiliated by whites (adults and children) who hold tight to their white privileged card in the presence of police officers, who also flash their card at the scene.
In addition to the vigilante resentment, corporations have bowed to the pressures of politicians and removed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies that were also introduced after the protest. These policies were enacted in good faith that corporations would protect the Black class against the racial hostilities that grew among the white citizenry. But no, laws have been passed that threaten corporation’s livelihood with fines and even jail time if they even think about protecting Blacks against workplace racism.
Schools, colleges, hospitals and other places of business are popping up as being anti-DEI under the threat of political blacklisting or public boycott. All to the tune of whites who have a deep-seated animosity for the open voices against racism and police brutality. Preachers and churches even, have taken the side of the aggressors and are preaching against social justice movements, wokism, and racial solidarity.
Lawmakers got further in on the backlash with laws against and banning of Critical Race Theory; a ghostly ideology that surfaced after the protest, dug up from some theoretical college paper by some angry white person. It became a talking point of stiff-necked anti-reformist and YouTube podcasters who stoked the war of race hatred. Books also, became a crime in schools. Consequentially, Black books intentionally, camouflaged with transgender and gay authors fell to the anger of whites.
A few white governors have taken the hate to another level by attempting to shield their white children from the hurt and pain they feel as their inhumanity is being revealed. They wrote laws that speaking of race or any American history which reveals said racism, is now forbidden. That slavery was not all that bad and that it was good for Blacks because it taught them skills. This ideology comes from the depths of shame, not leadership.
The Supreme Court jumped in also to show their solidarity with the angry crowd by reversing Affirmative Action, revoking funding programs and government grants to Black businesses and schools. Not just minority businesses, but Black business exclusively. They looked the other way when state legislators quietly wrote laws disenfranchising Black voters, reversing age-old Civil Rights laws, dispelled Black elected officials from state seats, mayors’ offices, corporate jobs and school boards.
No politicians have lifted a finger to address any of the above escalations of racist behavior coming from the fruited plains of America. It is as though they are on board with it all and are standing out of the way of the extremist who seek to stifle the progress of Blacks. All this because some bigoted cop decided he was above the law and wanted to show the rest of his white constituency that they can get away with whatever they wanted to, and that Blacks have no rights that a white man has to respect.
In his study on the topic of police brutality and the effect of the George Floyd protest, Campbell says, “findings unveil a dilemma with dire consequences — a choice between ignoring incidents of excessive force to maintain a motivated police force that prevents crime, and exerting public pressure on the police to reduce unnecessary force at the cost of disengagement, allowing criminal activity to fester. Clearly, new policies are needed to circumvent this dismal trade-off.
Also, “a phenomenon known as the “Ferguson effect.” A growing body of research supports the idea that when protests draw public attention to officer-involved killings, police officers become less proactive. They pull back from enforcing the law or engaging in practices aimed at ensuring public safety due to fear of criticism, lawsuits or simply low morale.”
In other words, should government punish police for their behavior at the expense of protection of the community? If the police feel demoralized by the community for killing Black men for no reason, they will resort to an unwillingness to perform their jobs. However, we could all simply sit back and let cops kill Black people so not as to anger the constituency of white racist. The dilemma is not that hard to figure out. Deplatform and blacklist hatred.
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