Over the last week, we have seen the, frighteningly, now normalized scene play out – video surfaces of an unarmed black man dying from excessive force at the hands of a white police officer, then a slow response from the local authorities saying that they cannot share information in an ongoing investigation, followed by the public outcry for justice for the slain in a peaceful protest.
This time, however, we compound the senseless violence against another black body with the suffering of a global pandemic that has disproportionately killed black people and exacerbated the wealth gap with new joblessness, again, disproportionately impacting the black community. Now, as George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade and Ahmaud Arbery become the latest names in a long list of recycled ‘justice for’ hashtags trending on social media, there is destruction accompanying protests in all corners of the country.
However, the public outrage that you see is not in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police – his death was the tipping point. Continue reading in the Orange County Register.