a MAN was killed yesterday

Originally posted on Daily Medium on May 27, 2220
by Sylvester Brown, Jr.

One of my Facebook “friends” posted a photo, captured sometime between 1920 and 1938. It was a picture of a flag that hung in New York City from a high-rise building which housed the headquarters of the NAACP. The banner simply stated, “A man was lynched yesterday.”

The person who posted the photo made no comment. For me, words were unnecessary. I get it. A man, a black man, by the name of George Floyd, 46, was killed a couple days ago by Minneapolis police. The murder was captured on video.

For me, the connection between the NAACP photo and the video of Floyd’s murder was immediate. The flag that flapped high above hustling, bustling Fifth Avenue, emphasized the continuous torture and murder of black people. It was a steady, 18-year reminder that, as life went on, a man, a human being, was murdered in America.

After seeing the video a day after Floyd’s death, I thought, “I just watched police callously, coldly, unemotionally kill a man.” 

What struck me most was the look on the face of the killer, whom the Minneapolis Star Tribune identified as Officer Derek Chauvin. This officer placed his full weight (which had to be at least 200 pounds) on the neck of a restrained man whose face was scrunched in the concrete pavement.

 For at least 8 minutes, the officer, with hand in his pocket, stared wordlessly, defiantly at a group of onlookers pleading with him to get off the man’s neck; to understand the man was dying; to at least check his vital signs.

The officer stoically ignored Floyd’s plea: “My stomach hurts. My neck hurts. Everything hurts. … (I need) water or something. Please. Please. I can’t breathe, officer. I cannot breathe. I cannot breathe.”

As Floyd moaned in agony, calling out to his “Mama” and eventually stopped breathing, the officer, nonplused, showed no sympathy, no anger, no remorse-nothing.

As Floyd moaned in agony, calling out to his “Mama” and eventually stopped breathing, the officer, nonplused, showed no sympathy, no anger, no remorse-nothing.

The inhumanity was exacerbated by the other cops who held Floyd down with Chauvin perched on his neck. Not one of them told their colleague his deadly actions were unwarranted. Another officer, Tou Thao, mostly stood with his back to Chauvin, focusing more on confronting onlookers than the murder occurring behind his back. When paramedics arrived, I didn’t see one check Floyd’s vital signs or attempt resuscitation. They simply loaded his prone, unconscious body on a stretcher like a slab of dead meat.

No, Floyd wasn’t lynched. He was callously, coldly and cruelly murdered in broad daylight on a hustling, bustling metropolitan street. Yes, the officers involved have been fired. Yes, Minneapolis Police Chief, Medaria Arradondo, and the city’s Mayor Jacob Frey have denounced the actions of the dismissed cops. Yes, there is national outrage and protests.

But still, life goes on.

I suppose being stunned by one death during a pandemic that’s closing in on 100,000 deaths, may be a sign of misplaced priorities. Yet, for black people, especially, it’s just another layer of trauma during a traumatic time. As we grapple with the disproportionate number of black deaths from Covid 19, black lives are continuously, unceremoniously snuffed out because of their skin color.

As we grieve the deaths of loved ones from the virus, we also have to reconcile the nonsensical deaths of others like Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old black emergency-room technician who was sleeping in her Louisville, Kentucky apartment on March 13th when plainclothes police arrived with guns ablaze, killing Taylor in the wee hours of the morning.

Breonna Taylor

“Breathing” is a luxury for parents who don’t have to worry about their kids jogging in neighborhoods like the one in Glynn County, GA where Ahmaud Arbery, 26, was gunned down on February 23, by a white father and son.

Although whites fear that their husbands, wives or children may contract the coronavirus, they need not worry that their skin color will get them harassed or killed by police. This was the case in May when David Stewart, an Oklahoma City homeowner’s association member called the police on Travis Miller, a black delivery driver, who was simply doing his job.

Black women, unlike white women like Amy Cooper, don’t have the luxury of calling 911 to claim “an African American man” had threatened her life when, in actuality, the man only inconvenienced her. Christian Cooper (no relation), an avid bird watcher, only asked the woman to restrain her dog in Central Park. And, because of this, Cooper felt justified in putting Christian’s life in jeopardy.

I’m so tired of being sick and tired of unnecessary black death by the hands of police. During this critical time, why can’t I share the worry and grief of those who don’t look like me without the extra burden of dealing with race-related murder. Many years ago, the NAACP’s flag highlighted a simple truth: Another human being died needlessly because of his race. It’s heartbreaking that some 80 years later, that reminder is still relevant.

Is it too much to ask for compassion, empathy, and humanity? Why do I, and so many others who share my hue, have to wrestle with a devastating health-related pandemic while simultaneously grieving the age-old epidemic of racism?

At some point, hopefully, these simple words will matter:

“A Man Was Killed Yesterday.”

************************

Sylvester Brown, Jr. is a former columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, founder of the Sweet Potato Project, an entrepreneurial program for urban youth and author of  “When We Listen: Recognizing the Potential of Urban Youth.”