George Floyd is why Kaepernick and sports must continue to lead fight for social justice | Opinion
The images are appalling. They evoke disgust, and sorrow, and anger. The cellphone video depicting the violent death of a man is right there for everyone to see. It is in living color — but all black and white.
Here was a white officer killing an unarmed black man. Again. Again.
George Floyd died with his hands in cuffs behind his back and gasping for air, as Minneapolis policeman Derek Chauvin pressed a knee on his neck for almost eight minutes, until the defenseless man stopped breathing.
Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of trying to pass a counterfeit bill. Surveillance video refutes the officers’ claim that Floyd had resisted arrest.
Chauvin and three other involved officers were fired. It wasn’t enough. Firing isn’t the justice demanded here, so it was heartening to see Chauvin arrested and charged Friday with third-degree murder and manslaughter.
A small-town Mississippi mayor had the gall to say he saw no wrongdoing by the officers in that video. Yet in the video you hear Floyd moaning in pain and saying “I can’t breathe.” Those were the same words said by another black man, Eric Garner, before he died in 2014 in the choke hold of a white New York City officer. There have been far too many other such incidents in between.
Garner’s death gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement and inspired former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick to protest for social justice by kneeling during the national anthem before games.
The irony in that is bitter.
That Minneapolis officer used his knee to wrongfully kill a man.
Kaepernick used his peacefully, in a cry for the end of deadly police force against unarmed black men.
I get that police officers are needed in society, that they have a tough job, and that the vast majority are good cops. But there are certain jobs — cops, commercial airline pilots — where even one bad one is too many.
Police departments need to do a better job in the vetting/hiring process to get psychologically sound people, and to weed out the bad ones better.
The officer who caused Floyd’s dearth had a long list of prior complaints against him, but there he was this week, with his knee causing a death and unrest across America at the very time when the coronavirus pandemic and resulting economic crash challenge us to come together as a nation.
I will get emails over this column advising me to “stick to sports,” from people who do not care to understand that I am an American citizen and a father of two young adult sons before I am a sports guy.
I and my sons are white, and so have sailed through life with the unearned privilege of not facing prejudice and racism because of the color of our skin.
The anger over Floyd’s death that has provoked protests and even rioting across many U.S. cities is something I cannot feel as viscerally as if I were black, perhaps, but I feel it as an American. I feel shamed that racism in this country goes on, and that when it emanates from our leaders, from police meant to protect us, is it systemic.
(Have you heard of Archie Williams? This is unrelated but at the same time is related. An older black man, Williams wowed the judges on “America’s Got Talent” this week with his rendition of Elton John’s “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me.” He was a newly free man after spending 36 years jailed for a crime he didn’t commit -- wrongly convicted in Louisiana before finally seeing justice via DNA and help from the Innocence Project).
“Stick to sports”? No, thank you. Not here.
It does not apply to the anger and empathy I am feeling about George Floyd’s wrongful death in a long line of such abomination.
I feel what former Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade is saying when he writes on Twitter: JUSTICE WILL NOT BE SERVED UNTIL THOSE UNAFFECTED ARE AS OUTRAGED AS THOSE WHO ARE!!!!!!!!!!
The Golden State Warriors’ Steve Kerr was not being a basketball coach, but just a human being, when he saw that video of Floyd’s death and said, “This is murder.”
LeBron James posted on his Instagram a six-year old photo of himself wearing an I CAN’T BREATHE T-shirt during practice before a game. It was for Eric Garner then. Could have been for George Floyd now.
James also posted a two photos that depict the Minneapolis officer’s deadly knee on Floyd’s neck on the left, and Kaepernick’s peaceful kneeling on the right. The caption: THIS... ...IS WHY.
R.I.P. George Floyd, and to whomever is next until we finally fix this.
This story was originally published May 29, 2020 at 11:09 AM.
