On May 25^th, 2020, a man by the name of George Floyd was murdered by Police. Police arrested George Floyd for passing a fake $20.0 bill at the grocery store. According to the story told Floyd purchased cigarettes and was asked to return the Cigarettes the store called the police and that is when Floyd had an encounter with the Police.  An encounter that cost him his life. The police officer claims he was resisting arrest and so the officer pressed his knee on Mr. Floyd’s neck for 8 mins and 46 seconds. The interesting part is that the whole incident was filmed on someone’s cell phone, thanks to new technology you may say, but people standing by were pleading with the Officer to at least stand-up, get off his neck, because Floyd was yelling out, “I can’t breathe”. He already had Floyd in handcuffs.

People did nothing but film the incident, I’m not calling for an attack on the police, but they didn’t do anything, even didn’t call 911,  that could have saved his life. They did not call extra police, they just kept filming.  It seems in this day and age, because of our addiction to our cell phones and social media we have actually forgotten how to be responsible citizens.  If someone’s house was burning as I said before, we might have to help before the fire department gets there. In this era, people will be the first to film and then post it on social media before they even think about doing anything else.

Cell phones these days are becoming more and more sophisticated,  our lives are more and more connected to this device.  The integration of social media platforms and cell phones made it possible to have access to social media platforms 24 hours a day and even broadcast live in most cases. In this always “connected” world people will rather be a Facebook citizen, Instagram citizen, than a responsible one. we always pay attention to things like drug epidemics, suicides, but somehow we have left out social media addiction, which in itself is an epidemic. I’m just an individual writing an article, but if this is not true, then why do we have social media addiction centers?? During Floyd’s incident, people were standing by for 8,  that is enough to save a life.  Paramedics would have told the officer to move, so they can administer first aid…….

Then followed waves of protest, all across the nation, it even went international. Another interesting fact, the same thing happened over and over again during the protest, riots, and looting. People went with their cell phones, filmed themselves at the protest, some even started broadcasting live, ( narcissism at its best). Some stood in front of the police officers, provoking them, and trying to get a reaction while filming so they can get “content” for their social media platforms. It is almost as if the people protesting didn’t go there to protest but to get on social media and act as if they were actually there to protest. Of course, our “holy” celebrities don’t make it easier, they have people who follow them on social media religiously,

The ironic part of all this was people didn’t realize that they were making the same mistake which partially caused the death of Mr. Floyd, No one did anything but stand there and film. I’m not saying they should have attacked the police,(AGAIN) but something as little as calling 911 when he first shouted “ I  can’t breathe” may have saved his life.  An ex-officer David Dorn, lost his life while trying to protect a store, while he was bleeding to death someone was filming instead of calling 911, he wanted to be the first to capture the footage.

Cell phones are a necessity in today’s word, but it is out of control, it has become the most important thing in our lives. Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to the attention society, and the most important vehicle in this attention society are our smartphones. I will say this, like everything else moderation is the key, we have big corporations and social media companies who dissect and play with our emotions, the more addicted we are, the more money they make, it is in their best interest to keep us glued to our phones. This is a point where we as a society should pause and say “ this is getting out of hand, and we must do something about it”. The police are human beings too, so we can’t expect every police officer to be perfect, or even good,  what the INDIVIDUAL police did was wrong, he ended up killing a man, I don’t know what his intentions were, we leave that for the courts to decide and find out but at least at this man’s funeral,  it shouldn’t be all about police brutality,  it should also be about the mental health of which social media is a big part of. I don’t expect our politicians to do anything about it, they actually benefit from social media,  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called facebook a public health risk, of course after her campaign benefitted from its use.  I haven’t heard anything from the media about this issue.

Like I said before, moderation is the key, and let us give ourselves the chance to integrate responsible citizenry and social media, I’m just one man but I have started the conversation, hopefully, a few people will join in so we can get the ball rolling. This is a better idea than defunding the police. if we can do this to fast-food restaurants and push them to become more health-oriented, then we can also push these big corporations to address mental health and how addictive social media can be.

We are all furious about what happened but defunding the Police is not the answer. Where are those funds going? More social programs???. What programs are those ?? Public schools are funded by property taxes. Let us talk about social programs for a second, does anyone remember some social programs that were supposed to benefit communities?  Like the war on poverty, war on drugs??. Should the money go towards more public housing?  I would say NO because that never solved the problem of poverty. It only gives people just enough to get buy but not enough for anything else.  Policing may need an overhaul, no one has even talked about what we would be replacing the police with.  It will be total chaos. Let us agree that if the Police hadn’t been around this protest/riot/looting the situation could have been far worse. The police do stand for something, in some states the police were actually kneeling with the protesters, So most  Police officers know what happened was wrong but it doesn’t happen every day, and we know this. I  would advocate for Police overhaul not getting rid of it entirely.

Some also make the argument that the history of Police started with slave patrols, they use this as evidence of systemic racism well. We cannot deny that there are racist elements within the police force. The police were used in the past for racist purposes. The police are not ALL BAD.(one thing we must remember)

Let us not also forget that we are in a recession to some families being a Police officer is their major source of income .if we defund the Police we are taking jobs away from people and that is not right. Like the case of David Dorn, he was a retired Police officer and was killed trying to protect a store from looters, let us not forget that so many Police officers have also died in the line of duty. And they deserve our respect and 1-minute silence

Another fun fact,  70% of income taxes are paid by men yet most social programs in social services are for women, which brings me to this point. Most police brutality victims are men, Most suicides victims are men,  I think we should fight for men as much as we can. The police suffer too,  according to some news networks, 400 officers were injured due to this riot and two died, So far.

Do we like to say black lives matter??  here are a few black people who lost their lives, because of the protest and riots according to forbes.com

Calvin L Horton JR, 43, he was shot near the police department, he was a Staff Sargent in the United States Army.

Dave Patrick Underwood 53, he was killed in California, he was a Service Protective Officer

Chris Beaty 38 was a football Player, 

Italia Kelly 22, shot while leaving the protest for George Floyd ( even though she wasn’t black, she died at a tender age of 22)

David Dorn, 77 Ex-police officer, got shot while protecting a store from looting

I’ll end with this, last year 9 unarmed black men were shot by the police vs 19 unarmed whites. You do the math, do we still need to defund the Police?

Let us take a look I agree with her that our community which is the black community always uplifts the wrong people, it is almost as if our heroes are the ones who have gone against the “system”. We like to listen to our entertainers, and we glorify the people who are actually engaging in destructive behavior.  I also agree with her on the point that, once the officer was arrested for killing an unarmed man, all this should have stopped. That showed that someone sat down and said “ wait a minute” this isn’t right”. The looting doesn’t help anyone, we have actually ended gentrifying our own neighborhoods. We almost always turn around and say “ why can’t we have nice things like white people?” we forget that looting and breaking into stores doesn’t really hurt the business, the big businesses have cash on hand, and they have insurance,  after all this, they are going to pack up and leave because their insurance premiums might be too high for being in a high-risk neighborhood. Burning Target or any other big store doesn’t hurt them all.  Their CFO’s actually have a budget for these things.

I also agree with what she said about  Derick Chavin, being a killer,  because of that, he is not being uplifted in the white communities.

Here is where I disagree with her,  she brought up George Floyd’s criminal record, and the mental state he was in during his arrest. My question to her would be So ???? His past doesn’t mean he should die like that or die by the hands of the law,  So to that point, I will say the fact that he wasn’t a good person in his community doesn’t mean he deserved to die. Actually, when Police officers found out he was high at the time of the “arrest” that was the more reason to handle him with extreme caution because he might not be responsible for his actions, his judgment would extremely be impaired. So him being intoxicated doesn’t mean he deserved to die. ( I can’t say that enough).

True he has a criminal record. He has done somethings that he shouldn’t have done, but the fact is he was murdered right in his own neighborhood, AND that is not right !!!. She is right that we go too far and only say good things about people who might not deserve it, but she is overlooking the fact that when someone dies, remembering the good things they do helps loved ones get some closure, he was still a human being and still had people who loved him.  I can’t say I agree with her, everyone has a good side and a bad side. The hypocrisy is the problem,  as black people, we love being hypocrites when it comes to things like this, it is almost as if we like to pretend we don’t kill each other on a daily basis.  I agree with the fact that she is calling out the hypocrisy. That being said it still doesn’t mean he deserved to die.  To me murder is murder. So black on black crime should get the same attention from black leaders, entertainers like George Floyd got. He has a gofundme set up that has almost $12 million and still going. Do you mean to tell me the death of this man has people pooling money together for one man ??? All in the name of Police Brutality???  We can’t do it for any other reason but tragedy?? My question is that didn’t police brutality exist before ??  Now we have our so-called entertainers, donating, setting up college funds, etc. Extreme virtual signaling!!

Let us do some math,  Oprah, Jay Z, Kanye West, Michael Jordan,  are all billionaires, they can actually put a college fund for a whole lot of kids, but that doesn’t happen,  I’m not asking them just to give money out, but it is just funny that they are doing that now.

Coming back to Candace, the criminal record doesn’t justify what happened to him.  The man shouldn’t have died at the hands of the law. The law was supposed to protect him in the first place. Let us be honest here if George Floyd had not died the way he did and just died at the hands of another black man, no one would have cared, its just another black man they will say.  She asked why are we pretending George Floyd was a good man?  Well here is where it gets a little tricky, if you go into his history, of course, he wasn’t a good man, but I have never seen the law take a record of someone’s “goodness”, it’s the bad things that one does, those are the things that are recorded.  George Floyd may have done some good things, but we might never know what those are because authorities are not interested in the good things people do. I think there is something larger at play here, for example, George Floyd knew that police officer, so why isn’t anyone talking about that?  they worked together for a year and no one is asking more questions about this.

She went on to say Police Brutality is a myth, well I disagree and agree at the same time if we are looking at the numbers alone it seems like a myth, secondly, if something appears on the news, just by default it means it doesn’t happen every day that is why it is on the news, example when killing became normal in the black neighborhoods, the media stopped reporting on the killings and murders because It became so normal that reporting on them will be a waste of time.  Most people cannot tell you, 5 people, who they know, who have been a victim of police brutality. Considering the fact that we are just  13% of the population. In fact, they are more likely to tell you about someone who they know, who got killed by another black person than killed by the police.

To end this I’ll ask, is everything happening really about Police Brutality, or is it about killing or about both, ?? If it is about Police Brutality then we have our priorities misplaced because that doesn’t happen as much as they would want us to believe, if it is about killing, then where is the outrage for David Dorn? David Dorn was a 77-year-old ex-police officer who was shot in cold blood by a black man while he was trying to protect a store from looters, you know the same looting that the death of George Floyd caused???  , I’m yet to see any protest and outrage about him. In fact, since he left behind 5 children and 10 grandchildren I think the Floyd family should donate some of the money they got from gofundme to Mr. Dorn’s family.  If this is a fight against systemic racism then they can join hands in solidarity can’t they ??? They got $12 Million, I stand corrected, they have broken gofundme donation record, it has surpassed $13 million, so what’s a million to this man’s family right ??? I doubt that will ever happen,  Minneapolis government just asked the federal government for $45 million, you know to help with all the damage, here is a strange idea, since everyone is claiming to stand in solidarity, everyone somehow cares about each other almost instantaneously,  the Floyd family can donate let’s say $2 million, they can even ask that the money is used to help those who lost their jobs due to this protest/riots/looting.  They can actually make provisions, so that police get nothing from their donation… Ha, once again I doubt that will ever happen. It is safe to say it was and will never be about George Floyd.

Speaking of gofundme Candace Owens put one up to raise funds for a Café in Birmingham,  Alabama, she got $200,000.00 Gofundme suspended her gofundme over her “opinion”!!!!

I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt, with one question, where is the protest for David Dorn.?   David Dorn was a retired Police officer, a captain who was shot after responding to a pawnshop alarm. He was an officer for 38 years. David Dorn was 77 years old, oh he was shot by a black man. Where is the protest for him.??? Black lives matter but only to everyone else but black people. Back to our celebrities, they always know when to weigh in don’t they? they know when to throw money around.  They know how to express their fake outrage at people they would never meet or know or even care about,  then they come to protests with bodyguards and return to their gated communities to feel safe.  BLACK ON BLACK CRIME IS just swept under the rug. We can kill each other all day long.

Again it is almost as if this is about something else. If all this was fair then someone tells me what happened here. Oh before I mention that, let us not forget about the COVID 19 which is now killing black people more than any other race,  I have to ask, where are the protests for that, Hello??? celebrities????  Amazing how the narrative jumps around !!!

Back to the story, a white woman by the name of Justine Damond was shot by a black police officer in the same city in Minneapolis after she called the Police because she saw a woman being assaulted. Mind you this happened right after Philando Castile a black man who was fatally shot by a white Police officer. If this was really about Police Brutality, then there should have been a protest against the police. Although the officer was found guilty and sentenced to 12 years in prison. No one did anything, no protests, nothing!

No one deserves to die, especially by some else’s negligence, but if BLACK lives matter, it should matter ALL the time not sometimes . and if we are talking about Police Brutality we should talk about it in terms of ALL lives, ALL the time. Did anyone notice, the word Brutality doesn’t have a race attached to it ???

“Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all-time thing. 

You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while

you do them right all the time, Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.” Vince Lombardi

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