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For a moment, George Floyd's murder changed everything. Those days are gone.
(www.usatoday.com)
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this post was submitted on 26 May 2024
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politics
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TL;DR: BLACK LIVES MATTER and the people who rioted after George Floyd's murder have set civil rights back by decades. Reactionary politics are cancer.
This is what happens when you prop up a career criminal as a martyr.
George Floyd was a bad man. Is anyone actually surprised that nothing good came from the riots following his death?
Breonna Taylor's murder comes to mind. That woman was an innocent and upstanding member of society. She was a fucking EMT and the reaction to her being murdered by cops blindfiring through her window after a no-knock breach was fucking mute compared to the rabidity that people showed after George Floyd was murdered. This was two and a half months before Floyd's murder.
Where were the riots following her death? Oh, right, it didn't happen for another two fucking months because it was largely unnoticed outside of Louisiana until CNN released s story about it. Even then they weren't as bad as what happened after Floyd's death.
The wild disparity between the two events can be summed up quite simply - Floyd's murder was recorded and shown immediately, Breonna's murder was not.
Reactionary politics are cancerous. Of course things have only gotten worse - the idiots responsible for the riots provided conservatives with all the talking points they needed to make the other side look fucking rabid.
That's not even mentioning the bad actors who jumped on the event to cause havoc. Yes I'm talking about the white people dressed all in black throwing molotovs and chanting "black lives matter".
I don't even know why I'm writing this, I guarantee I'll get responses that completely ignore the points I'm making and cherrypick. Let's see.
Edit: what a surprise, reactionaries reacting. Crazy.
I don't care about the particular person being targeted, the police aren't supposed to murder someone just because they feel like it. If they're a first time offender or a "career criminal" they shouldn't be killed unless there's no feasible alternatives.
Do you honestly think there would have been meaningful lasting change if people propped up Breonna as a martyr instead? Why hasn't that happened for any of the other well-publicized deaths of upstanding citizens? Why haven't things like consent decrees and civilian oversight boards been enough to curb police violence and rights abuse, especially against minority groups?
The police didn't even bother pretending they were sorry and would pinkie-swear to reform, they flat out demanded that they be allowed to act with impunity and then just decided they didn't want to enforce the law at all anymore if the public was going to be angry with them. Are there instances of the police stating they want to improve their perception and relationship with the public and "the reactionaries" just deciding to riot instead? It should never have come to the point that a large amount of people (across the country) felt rioting was the most appropriate move, but since it did I think the failing was just that it didn't go far enough. There's plenty of evidence to conclude that the police and their enablers will not voluntarily reform and will need be forced against their will.
And as far as providing conservatives with talking points, there's literally no situation where they won't just use whatever narrative they want; even if it involves space lasers or child trafficking in a pizzeria basement.
There it is again, reading comprehension is a dying concept I swear to god.
In no way did I suggest Floyd should have been killed. I pointed out that the person people rioted over was a genuinely bad person. Anyone who threatens to kill a pregnant woman at gun point is a bad person. Period, I don't care how hard their lives might have been or what led to that point, that is not a man you should make into a martyr.
I absolutely think that who you're fighting for matters. Yes, conservatives will spin things however they can. That doesn't change the fact that the same reactionaries responsible for the riots as a result of George Floyd's murder were completely unaware of something worse that happened. I remember seeing Breonna Taylor's murder pop up in my feed within a few days if it happening. It's not like they didn't have the same tools to see exactly what I did, and yet the dumb motherfuckers did nothing for two months.
Now there's the added bonus of the irrefutable fact that George Floyd was a bad person. When you give conservatives something real to use as ammunition it only bolsters their ability to twist the truth and push their racist agenda.
You can be mad at me all you want, I'm right. Was what happened to both of them a perfect display of the festering cancer within police forces across the United States? Not only that, but a display of how wrong minorities are treated by those forces? Absolutely, as I've never once stated or believed that Floyd should have been murdered.
He's just not a man worth fighting for.
But you insist on going out of your way to bloviate about how he was such a terrible person. That's the entire crux of your argument and it just doesn't matter. The whole point of having human rights and rule of law is not to pick and choose when they apply. Everyone should care when anyone is needlessly killed or abused, regardless of their past or personality. It's possible to want a person to die but still insist that others don't kill them.
And please chill with your moaning about everyone's reading comprehension and intelligence. It's not conducive to polite discussion and might give people the impression you're just trolling.
While I can't dive into the specifics about George Floyd's character, as I don't know enough about him. But I do really disagree with you about that any persons murder, especially by the police, is not worth fighting for. In my opinion they all are, even the worst ones. Not fighting or causing a huge reaction protest is how we end up with a police that acts with impunity. But just as you write the police forces and their abusive officers are the genuine problem in this area..
So what did you do when you read about Ms. Taylor's murder?
Also, you've missed the entire point if you think this movement is about a single person. This movement is about police being overtly violent with impunity.
Then I'll come right out and directly ask: should the man you're demonizing have been killed by the police?
I think the difference be between Briana's and George's killing and why one got the limelight was two fold. One could have maybe explained away as an honest mistake or a bad situation. The other was pretty blatant malice. George being the latter. Outrage takes time to build and can dissipate quickly. It maybe the public had just reached a tipping point after months and years of unlawful killing by police of black people, mostly male, mostly young.
I think the offense people took with your reply is due to the historic "he was no Angel" excuse. As a way to justify the inexcusable, cold blooded murder.