Facebook Publication Date: 5/25/2021 14:05

May 25.

This is a day of remembrance in what should be a week of reflection.

One year ago today, George Floyd was murdered by a former police officer in Minnesota.

We can say ‘murdered’, rather than ‘allegedly murdered’, or ‘fatally detained’, or ‘unfortunately felled’ or whatever euphemism is usually drummed up when a Black person is killed by peace officers in America.

We can say ‘murdered’ because something rare occured in a nondescript courtroom almost a year after Mr. Floyd’s life was taken from him with (almost) unimaginable cruelty, as a knee belonging to Derek Chauvin, a police officer with a history, willfully held him down, even beyond his last breath–for over eight minutes.

We can say ‘murdered’ because in this instance, the man who denied the personhood of another man was ‘held accountable’; was not allowed to slide; was not covered by the shield. His actions were ultimately neither minimized nor rationalized–at least later on. Veracity came hard, in the form of footage and eyewitnesses; the mischaracterizations and outright lies from the police department were forced to cede to brutal truth.

We (meaning white people–and many white adjacent) celebrated the conviction of Chauvin mere weeks ago; celebrating the rarity as much as the action. Like the election of Barack Obama in 2008, many saw this action as some kind of definitive gesture that both hearkened in and proclaimed something of a new era, and which also put a period on a year of outward outrage and inward reflection.

Welp.

There was outrage and actions, yes, some coordinated, some not. Much like the Civil Rights Movement, where white people reminisce fondly about events they never actually attended, white participation in civil actions was as lauded as it was vastly overstated. There were far more who were either passively in support, agnostic or (and more probably) indifferent, and those who were either mildly or more strongly hostile to it all; this Black Spring, which was to usher in new conversations that would result in durable changes in society; in policy, in law and in new awareness and acknowledgment.

It didn’t; not really.

As we will see as we walk together through this series, the changes were less durable than anyone thought or, more accurately, than anyone wanted to admit.

People, initially horrified at the visceral horror of imagining almost 10 minutes of a boot on a neck, eventually became desensitized.

The Black Spring brought a rush of initial empathy and outrage, yes.

But as the months wore on, people stopped gasping at the thought of George Floyd’s gasping; became inured, toughened–hardened even–at what felt like daily reminders of the atrocity at the hands of Chauvin that began to feel less like prompts of conviction (both morally and actually, as people debated what fate Chauvin should ultimately receive), than impositions and intrusions–yes, yes, it was horrible; yes, yes, completely unwarranted; yes, yes, not one bit justifiable; yes, yes, the very definition of unconscionable.

But inwardly, many (most) of the white cohort started to feel as I often do when someone belabors a point: Stipulated, they effectively said. Noted. Got it.

And the collective outrage dissipated from a full throated cry to a collective cluck and canned, performative empathetic responses, responses also tinged with impatience and not so low key anger–anger not at the cop who killed, and the system that came thisclose to allowing, even encouraging, him to get away with murder, but rather at the man who died calling out for his mama, and those (including altogether too few white people, despite the media framing) who refused to allow Mr. Floyd to be forgotten, or worse, demonized and dehumanized–which is exactly what callous numbness to evil will do, especially when encouraged by systems and institutions, like police forces, governments, and, crucially, the media; exactly what they hoped for and stoked.

But as maddening as the way the wheels of systemic white supremacy still managed to turn even in the face of incontrovertible evidence, this truth absolutely must be noted: the systems and institutions wielded exactly the amount of power and influence, and evoked exactly the attitudes, behaviors, and ultimate actions of people *who allowed it*, and who, in many ways, took cover and succor and were entirely too ready and willing to be sucked into the vacuum and vortex of these systems and institutions. Put another way: most of America was and is primed to believe what we disingenuously say we are skeptical of; most of America did not really want to cast a critical lens toward all of the gestalt, all of the factors of secular powers and principalities that Chauvin assumed would give him immunity and impunity.

Pandora’s box of systemic and institutional white supremacy was not thrown open; it was hardly even cracked before it was shut down with the same amount of force as Chauvin’s boot.

The Master padlock on the box was the verdict, which came with two different sorts of collective sighs; of relief for the vast majority of dominant culture Americans, which served to drown out another sigh, not a smaller sigh, but one that, ushered from a collective mouth that white america has been conditioned to ignore, and when it couldn’t be ignored, conditioned and primed and willingly conspired to denigrate and disparage.

This week, we will talk about it all in a series of conversations about the aftermath of the year after a man was brutally murdered by another man charged to protect and serve. We will begin with police, not just in Minnesota, but across the country, to policymakers, to companies who finally managed to croak out ‘Black Lives Matter’ turning it, in many ways, into nothing more than a marketing and pr tool, to the public at large, and, finally, to our own community here at Lace on Race.

This will not be an easy conversation, particularly for the lurkers and the intermittents and those who left (sort of) and those who stayed (sort of); not for the thousands who are peripherally here, but not really–and even for the faithful, who sometimes wonder about the efficacy of their walking, even as so many of their friends, colleagues–even their fellow walkers here–found offramps and rest stops.

But this must never be forgotten: the bruises, and bunions, and blisters that we have endured as we have turned our heads, hearts, and guts unwaveringly toward the North Star absolutely pale in comparison to the bruises and crushed windpipe and garbled last breaths of a man on a sidewalk in late spring in Minnesota.

George Floyd is still dead. But we are not.

Actively and intentionally look for the series in this coming week. Read, confront, reflect, comment, respond. Let it sear you yet again, and let this series spur you into renewed commitment; renewed outrage; renewed thirst for change; renewed relentlessness.

Keep walking. Keep walking. Keep Walking.

Choose to be the balm, not the boot.

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