Take a knee for George Floyd

Another murder captured on video.

Another black man killed by a police officer.

Another city erupting in violence.

When does it end?

It’s mind boggling how a man sworn to serve and protect can casually squeeze the life out of another human being. Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin used the weight of his own body as a weapon to kill an unarmed handcuffed man as he begged for his life.

George Floyd’s last words were, “I can’t breathe.”

George Floyd was murdered as numerous people begged the officer to stop.

George Floyd stopped breathing and not one of the other three police officers present did anything to revive him. No mouth to mouth. No CPR. Nothing. They didn’t lift a finger to save him. They didn’t lift that knee off his neck.

We treat dogs better than we treat black men in this country.

If a police officer had done that to a German shepherd, the entire country would be outraged. There would be no white or black response; no liberal or conservative response. There would be one unified response against such a heinous act.

Instead, I hear some white people say, Well what crime was Floyd committing? Why was he resisting arrest? Why didn’t he just comply with the officer?

I once thought like that. Many, many, murders ago, I used to question, Why did the black man run? Why did the black man resist? Why did the black man break the law to get arrested in the first place?

I used to blame the black man. I was raised to believe that police officers were the good guys. In my world, the police came to save your life. That’s true if you’re white in America. I finally realized, after way too many deaths, that is not true if you’re black in America.

No, if you’re black, the police are the last people you can trust with your life.

Ask Tamir Rice’s mom. The police in my hometown gunned down her 12-year-old son just seconds after they pulled up. There was no talking to the boy, no questions asked. They gunned down a child playing with a toy gun.

Ask the families of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams. The police in my hometown fired nearly 140 bullets into their car. They were unarmed. The police mistook a car backfiring for a gunshot. The couple’s crime? They were black. They got 20 bullets each. The cops who shot them? There were no criminal convictions. Six of them were fired.

Ask the families of the black men killed in your city.

White people have berated NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick for “taking a knee” to protest the killing of black men in America. He refused to stand during the National Anthem as a silent, non-violent, public protest to keep the spotlight on injustice.

I hope it’s clear now what he was protesting.

LeBron James made it crystal clear when he tweeted the two photos side by side: The knee of a white police officer suffocating George Floyd next to the bended knee of Colin Kaepernick.

The next time Kaepernick or anyone else takes a knee, let’s not forget seeing George Floyd pinned underneath one.