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George Floyd was accused of passing counterfeit bills. He let cops cuff him. He didn’t resist arrest. An officer knelt on his neck for several minutes while Floyd complained that he could not breathe, while medical pros also told the cop that he was hurting Floyd.
Floyd was killed over a counterfeit $20. A local prosecutor is in the process of telling us that the only criminal here is the dead man who let the police arrest him.
For me, it prompts at least three questions:
1. What are black dads supposed to do? “The talk” used to be about telling your son to be respectful and compliant. Just get home. But what happens when complete compliance isn’t enough to save your life anymore?
1. What are black dads supposed to do? “The talk” used to be about telling your son to be respectful and compliant. Just get home. But what happens when complete compliance isn’t enough to save your life anymore?
2. What are citizens supposed to do? A man was killed by affirmative indifference. I doubt the officer set out to kill Floyd. I think he just didn’t give a shit. Floyd was (literally and figuratively) “beneath him,” so who cares whether he can breathe?
A prosecutor appears poised to let Floyd’s death pass with the same indifference. What “other evidence” indicates that the officer did *nothing wrong* by pinning Floyd’s neck and killing him?
How does a citizen respond to that kind of indifference to human life from the state?
How does a citizen respond to that kind of indifference to human life from the state?
3. What are the people of God supposed to do? Surely it cannot be to stand back, arms crossed, and say “*I* am not racist, so this isn’t my problem.”
There really are structures that allowed this kind of race-based indifference to happen, and we can do something about it.
There really are structures that allowed this kind of race-based indifference to happen, and we can do something about it.
It cannot be to say “Floyd should not have died, *but* riots are bad,” and wash your hands of the situation, as though pronouncing a plague on everyone’s houses absolves you of making any real moral judgments.
There was a real first evil here: an man bearing the image of God was killed without justification because a cop deemed him worthless. Christians and non-Christians alike should recognize that as an evil, and it should move them to act.
But if the people of God will not move with holy indignation, then you can expect others to act. When they do, it won’t look godly, but the people of God will largely forfeit the high ground of moral judgment.
You can seek godly justice, or you can have riots.
You can seek godly justice, or you can have riots.
It does not mean that you must to and dismantle whole structures of injustice in one fell swoop. But it does mean that in whatever garden God has given you to tend, tend it well.
My garden is the law. So I can think and write about the legal structures that contribute to the injustice done to George Floyd and others like him. (Qualifed Immunity delenda est!)
What’s your garden?
What’s your garden?
