George Floyd is dead, and that is an unmitigated tragedy all by itself before anything else happened. All four officers involved were sacked immediately pending investigation, and the alleged murderer was eventually arrested and charged with murder and manslaughter. It’s expected the others will face trial on criminal charges as well.
Absolutely no one on any side of politics, at any level of government, or in any law enforcement agency or their trade unions has come out and tried to contextualise or minimalise the evil brutality of the murderer. There is “systemic” condemnation, not tolerance, of this crime.
The public response on the streets of first Minneapolis and then most other major American cities defies hyperbole in the sheer scale, ferocity and irrationality. Buildings were burned to the ground, with accounts of some being lit while occupied and emergency services actually blocked from attending. Major retailers like Target have been looted and pillaged. Small business owners have been videoed as they were “kerb stomped” for trying to protect their livelihoods – kicked and beaten on the ground with repeated blows to the head and vital organs until their limp, bloodied bodies could offer no defence while the sociopathic violence continued without mercy.
Police officers who had done absolutely nothing wrong other than risk their lives in defence of innocents and pursuit of justice have given their lives to the senseless violence of those allegedly protesting violence and injustice. The video of George Floyd makes me angry, but the video of David Dorn, 77, retired police officer dying in the street makes me weep. This was no less brutal and cold-blooded an execution.
Such injustice demands outrage and sober intervention.
Yet while no one has defended the brutality of the cop charged with murder, many are rationalising & minimising the brutality of the ensuing protests. Hollywood celebrities have even generously donated to bail arrested rioters out of jail as if supporting their cause.
What’s going on? I can tell you exactly.
A demagogue is a political leader who seeks support by manipulating the baser instincts, the prejudices of ordinary people rather than by offering rational arguments. There is a popular narrative propagated by grievance activists, nurtured by mainstream media and exploited by far too many career politicians for their own power.
These devils on our shoulder have been whispering in society’s ear for decades that the freest, most inclusive and racially harmonious nation in the world is actually a seething bed of racism. It was founded in racism. It was built on racism. It prospered and is propelled by racism. Like the serpent sowing seeds of doubt in the Garden of Eden, they incessantly suggest the whole game is rigged to oppress them and keep them under control.
Everything which is less than ideal is because of racism. Everyone who doesn’t look like them is a racist. Everyone who looks like them but disagrees with them is suffering internalised racism. Everyone who denies they’re a racist is proving they’re a racist and everyone who deferentially apologises for being a racist is a recovering racist. You’re a racist.
The tragedy is with each new brick society allows in this towering wall of impenetrable incoherence, many have shut out the ability to reason objectively. They can’t see that there is no evidence of racism in the murder of George Floyd and even saying that irrationally outrages them.
The officer who brutalised Mr Floyd, Derek Chauvin, has a record of 18 complaints against him. One case resulted in a reprimand, one case is pending. That 16 cases were dismissed suggests a broken system, one made harder for police chiefs to discipline by police unions protecting their members. It is evidence of police brutality, but not evidence of racism.
Data don’t have feelings but can explain a lot.
In the United States of America, African-Americans comprise 13% of the population, yet account for 39% of the violent crimes and 51% of the murders committed. They are over-represented in their encounters with police, the kind of encounters where police are more likely to need to use force to arrest the suspect.
An important fact – which in no way excuses incidents of police brutality – is that police are more often in high crime neighbourhoods, either proactively or in response to crime, which unfortunately often happens to be black neighbourhoods for obvious, not racist reasons.
Another fact is that more white people are killed by police than black people, without the histrionics demonstrated by opportunistic activists. When the white Australian lady, Justine Damond, was brutally murdered by a black, Muslim police officer (also from Minneapolis Police Department), there was no retaliatory rioting, looting, violence or murders. The same brutal injustice – it just didn’t suit the victim-Olympics narrative, so the demagogues left their matches in their pockets.
According to The National Center for Biotechnology Information, victims of lethal force by on-duty law-enforcement (cops) were majority white (52%) and less than a third (32%) of fatalities were black. The point is well made that 32% is disproportionate to the 13% black population of America, but actually fails to consider the rate at which African-Americans encounter police due to their 39% share of violent crimes and 51% of murders.
32% deaths due to lethal force by on-duty law enforcement while 39% of violent crimes and 51% of murders? That’s not evidence of “systemic racism”.
At least be consistent.
If you, like me, are motivated to intervene in injustice, don’t just do something about it or only speak up when the perpetrator is white and male and the victim is black and/or female. But many bleeding hearts being manipulated by demagogues can’t even be that consistent.
The truly horrendous, genocidal pattern of violence against African-Americans is being swept under the rug, revealing less interest in objective justice and defence of natural human rights than an indefensibly incurious subscription to prejudiced agendas.
While African-Americans comprise only 13% of the population, they are more disproportionately affected by deaths in the custody of abortionists than of the police. 36% of all abortions in the United States are committed against black women.
According to a New York City Health Department report, 136,426 preborn black babies were deliberately killed and 118,127 were born safely between 2012 and 2016. It seems far easier to kill them while they’re innocent and defenceless.
In just one city more than half the African-Americans were killed before they could take their first breath. There’s a word for that, and it’s not “health care”. Over the span of five years 136,426 mothers had their babies violently crushed, dismembered and removed from their wombs by real, data-evidenced, “systemic racism”, oppression and injustice.
So I just want to know if those social justice warriors, so easily enflamed by moralising media, grievance activists and identity politics are just in it for the endorphin hit of getting some likes on social media or signalling your superior virtue. Or are they sincerely interested in objective justice and natural human rights?
How you vote at the next election will speak volumes.
