George Floyd was Murdered by Police Officers Three Years Ago on May 25
And Iowa teachers can't "say his name."
The three-year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd is tomorrow. As you remember, police officers murdered him after he allegedly committed a petty crime. It was all captured on video, and the police involved knew that they were being filmed, and they didn’t care. Bystanders told the police that they were killing him, and they didn’t care. A pack of men killed him, but not like a pack of wolves kills a deer. They killed him slowly, methodically, and surgically. Exactly like they were trained to do. We saw it.
One thing they shared with wolves was a taste for blood.
I’m sure that the training manual didn’t say specifically, “kill the suspect.” But the training surely instructed them to bring alleged perpetrators to the edge of death to ensure compliance. But he was complying and died regardless.
It was bigger than those individual men. It was also their training that killed him. Someone wrote that training manual and it was approved and widely adopted. It was approved by institution after institution. It was also systemic institutional racism that killed him.
And now Iowa teachers and teachers elsewhere can’t say his name under threat of punishment and job loss.
This is what authoritarian regimes do. They silence the intellectuals first.
Our nation’s most significant, boots-on-the-ground intellectuals are our public school teachers, and they are being silenced, and most Iowans are passively complicit because they aren’t paying attention. And sadly, Iowa legislative Republicans and Governor Kim Reynolds are the architects of this anti-American effort.
The fact that the state says teachers can’t say his name is proof that systemic racism exists.
I wrote the following piece shortly after George Floyd’s murder. I never got it placed. Whenever something like this happens, writers engage, and it’s tough to find a place for a piece like this because there are so many great writers out there working.
I don’t know about other writers, but I write to learn. I really don’t know what I think about something until I write about it.
This piece is a time capsule. I hope you find it interesting and valuable. It’s a gateway into conservative thought at the time. And today.
The murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, among other Black deaths at the hands of police, isn’t generating much emotion among my Republican friends here in rural Iowa, but their blood is boiling at the violence happening during some of the protests.
I can go a week without seeing a Black person in the small towns I wander in rural Marion County, Iowa, population of about 33,000. We are 97.46% white, .42% Black, and 62% of us voted for Donald Trump in 2016. For those who have never lived anywhere else, Black people are abstractions that they learn about from the media largely because of Black success on athletic fields, in music, and in popular culture. Success in other fields is rarely depicted. Given the popularity of Fox News and Donald Trump here among conservatives, we also learn about crime and poverty in majority Black inner cities (rat-infested hell holes to President Trump) and Black criminals. Fox loves to take local crime stories where the perpetrator is Black and elevate them to the national stage. Dog whistles day in and day out, like the beat of a drum. On our screens, white conservatives here see both Black successes (in sports and popular culture) and black “failures,” and they conclude that the only thing holding the Black “failures” back in the greatest country on earth is themselves, their culture, and Democrats.
Most have no Black friends and, as a consequence, have little clue what life is like for Black people who live here and certainly no idea what life is like for Black people elsewhere. Without acquaintance and connection, there is a regrettable gap in understanding and, for many, an empathy gap that is big enough to drive a battleship through sideways.
The only way most of them know Blackness is through Fox “News.”
They loathe the vandalism and riots—nearly all of them condemning them and then stipulating, “it doesn’t help their cause.” That’s a ritualistic utterance from conservative voices echoing across our sparsely populated landscape (and Fox “News”) that rejects a just cause—the grievances of generations of Black Americans—and absolves conservatives from thinking about the real problem: injustice. But to them, that vandalism is occurring is unrelated to whether or not the cause is just. They use vandalism as a red herring—a distraction from the real problem—and “it doesn’t help their cause” as a response to the red herring.
For my conservative friends, red herrings are everywhere, and they are angry about them. They are angry George Floyd had so many funeral services that he didn’t deserve, not recognizing that people were mourning more than one man. Some are angry that the Reverend Al Sharpton, who many consider a race-baiter, was involved in the service. They are angry that there were large Black Lives Matter protest crowds during COVID-19, but aren’t bothered by President Trump not wearing a mask or holding a rally with thousands of people. The pulling down of Confederate statues and renaming southern military bases, both legitimate efforts, are red herrings, too.
Those who frequently voice these sentiments here are men and invariably white. They can be of any age but tend to be over 30. Some of them are loud, proud, and in your face, angry that their status in the world is being challenged as if it is some zero-sum game when it isn’t. Some pose as “tough guys” and “rebels,” braver and more rude on Facebook than in real life, and are behind Donald Trump 100%.
They are so pathetic that if Donald Trump asked them to kiss his ass, they would reply, “which cheek?”
Many see themselves as members of the Christian right, and to them, their worldview is biblical and righteous. Some are real churchy, others not so much, but Christianity is an indelible part of their culture, conscious or not. The patriarchy gave them power at birth, and they claim the Bible as their guide, even when they can’t recite a single passage. They were angry and “in their minds” marginalized before Trump—now he’s jet fuel to their tiny flames.
Self-doubt would never occur to them; doubt is a stranger when you “know” you are doing the work of God; arrogance is your weapon, and ignorance is your armor.
These men are a minority, albeit a powerful one. While they are the most vocal, a great many more women and men hold their same values, only more quietly, and are seemingly benign. The latter is more insidious.
At the core of the worldview of many is an intolerant politicized evangelism in which notions of original sin permeate their values, consciously and unconsciously. To them, as in much of Christendom, we are all sinners and are saved through dedicating our lives to Jesus Christ, and good things will follow, ultimately leading to us sitting by his side for eternity. Everything is up to us. We are responsible, first, for the decision to follow Christ and, second, for everything else we do after that moment. Our previous sins are washed away, sort of like a get-out-of-jail-free card. So, what lies in our future is the result of our decisions. But if we sin again, we ask for forgiveness; everything is cool again!
My friends and many like them take this to an extreme with an idealized notion of personal responsibility always expressed but seldom realized in practice; others are judged more harshly than themselves and those like themselves. To them, we can make good decisions or bad ones, and all of the responsibility is ours. The solutions to all of our problems lie at our feet, and with Christ’s help, solutions are up to us. Can’t pay the rent? Work harder or get a better job. Pregnant and don’t want to be? Bad decision—you shouldn’t have had sex. Nothing to retire on? You should have saved more. Too bad you didn’t come to Jesus sooner.
This mentality rejects the arguments of Black Lives Matter supporters protesting police brutality and systemic racism, which my conservative friends don’t believe exists. If George Floyd hadn’t been irresponsible and passed a bad $20 bill or whatever he did to draw the attention of the police, he would be alive today. A true follower of Jesus wouldn’t have done that. Rayshard Brooks shouldn’t have been passed out drunk in his car or grabbed the cop’s taser. Breonna Taylor? Uh, a bad cop. Or a mistake. Mistakes happen. Truthfully? Most of my friends don’t even know who Breonna Taylor was or countless others.
This mentality applies to problems in the Black community. High incarceration rates? Poverty? Drugs? High unemployment rates? Diabetes and other health issues? Crime? Broken families? Their fault.
Meanwhile, they ignore the problems in our own broken White communities.
You name it, and my conservative friends know the cause: lack of personal responsibility and not enough Jesus.
So why should there be Black Lives Matter protests when our success is up to us, walking hand in hand with Jesus? They complain about the violence of protests, yet they also complained when Colin Kaepernick peacefully took a knee. Nothing Black people do except bend to their will is enough.
To my conservative friends, these Black Lives Matter protests shouldn’t exist. They see the Black Lives Matter protests as anti-cop, anti-American, and the product of a destructive liberal agenda that divides our nation along racial and gendered lines, blows up the traditional family, demonizes white men, and demands that God be taken out of the public sphere. Victimhood is part of their DNA, and Trump plays it like Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello.
To them, Trump’s rise to greatness was ordained by God. That Trump is so rich and powerful is seen as obvious evidence that he is the recipient of God’s grace, proof of the results obtained when taking personal responsibility (even though Trump never has). Many conservatives here believe Trump is the chosen one—yes that chosen one—and believe that his unique personal qualities that liberals so loathe make him the perfect wrecking ball that can destroy the grip liberals have on American culture.
To them, the world is going to hell, and liberals are the reason. And now liberals want to “defund the police,” apparently wanting even more anarchy on the streets. To some, only a criminal enterprise would suggest defunding the police. To them, it makes sense for the party of extortion, who have been buying minority votes for generations in exchange for social programs that leave those communities worse off year after year. And they assert this, the truth be damned.
In the conservative mind, liberals demand social programs that support and perpetuate irresponsibility. They want to take “our” tax dollars and spend them on people who have been irresponsible.
To them, Government should be the last resort for help. When in trouble, we need to look to ourselves for solutions, then seek help from family and then the church. That’s where you will find the help you need, not from the government. Family and the church can help you find your way out of your troubles, whereas the government creates dependency. Every person helped by the government is potentially a soul that the church could have saved, their sins forgiven. This is even though most churches I know in our small communities barely have enough money to keep their doors open.
That’s what they believe.
Just like all of one's sins are forgiven if one accepts Jesus, America’s sins are forgiven as well. Conservatives construct a version of the past with Rambo-vision beer goggles on, romanticizing past events, places, and people while placing them on a flawless pseudo-historic patriotic wonderland of a stage. Native American genocide, slavery and Jim Crow, and the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II? They might as well have never happened because anyone can be anything they want to be in America, the greatest nation on earth. For all of their proclaimed interest in history, they are only interested in a twisted, propagandized version written in their favor.
In that version, where slavery and Jim Crow are irrelevant today, and systemic racism doesn’t exist, how can they not possibly see the irony in the inexplicable conservative fondness for the Confederate flag, Confederate monuments, and their reluctance to rename southern military bases named after traitorous Confederate generals who sought to protect the institution of slavery and destroy the union.
In Republican thought here, Democrats are the real racists who believe minorities can’t make it on their own and need social programs for help.
Racism here is real, systemic, and mostly implicit. I truly believe most people are well-meaning and don’t recognize their actions and deeds are racist, or if they do, they think their racism does no harm, particularly when there is no Black or other minority person victim at hand.
At a recent public event that honored a respected Black member of one community, one presenter said to the crowd that the man was the “whitest black man he knew.” Racist jokes about the Obamas from conservatives were a recurring theme that still pop up on occasion. Being white, male, and on the wrong side of 60, many men think I believe as they do and feel free to share a racist comment. When I call them out on it, they say they are joking, and can’t I take a joke? I become the problem.
My lefty Christian friends believe their ancient and beautiful religion has been politicized and hijacked for nefarious ends by the Republican party, beginning with President Reagan, with its cruelest manifestation occurring under Trump.
Prior to the politicization of their faith under Reagan, in my youth, the movement here gained followers more through personal persuasion and acts of good faith and inspiration rather than political action, just one mostly positive perspective among many. Politicized, their values are destructive and taken to their logical conclusion, there’s no room for other faiths in their worldview, other cultures, or other perspectives, and they will use all of the political power they can gather to make it our collective future against our wishes.
Growing up in rural Iowa, being an evangelical Christian simply meant that one was obligated to share one’s faith and honored to do so. I’m sure to many evangelicals, that’s still what it means. In a broader context, and to many on the left, the word “evangelical” now has an intolerant and sinister reek to it. One pastor friend who doesn’t like to talk politics publicly tells me he used to call himself an evangelical, but no more. The connotations, particularly in association with Trump, are too much for him.
America is changing demographically and culturally, and the conservative Christian right is desperate to stop it. They can’t. We were created as, and remain, a diverse, pluralistic nation, whether they want us to be or not. It’s a losing gambit for them, and they are trivializing the faith they say they love.
One conservative friend who is a cop surprised me. He had watched the news coverage of the Minneapolis Police Department’s 3rd Precinct building burning during the May 28 riots following the murder of George Floyd.
My friend said something like, “don’t get me wrong, Bob, I don’t believe in vandalism, but when I watched that precinct building burn down, I thought, ‘Hell yeah, burn it.’ That place created, enabled, and sheltered those cops who killed George Floyd, and who knows what else they and other cops did. It needed to come down. I took some satisfaction in watching it burn.”
Say his name.
Most of you know that I have started another Substack focusing on my healing walks every morning at the Cedar Bluffs Recreation Area, called Cedar Creek Nature Notes. Also, after nearly 20 years in small market radio, I have started a small PR consulting group called “Better PR” with an associated Substack newsletter. I know many subscribers here are in the corporate world, in education, and in nonprofit companies, and might value it.
I’ll help companies and nonprofits with PR but won’t work with political campaigns because I still want to write about them, and I don’t want any conflicts of interest.
Please sample the talents of my fellow collaborative members. If you can afford to be a paid subscriber, that would be great. If not, the vast majority of content is free. And here is a link to the Iowa Podcasters’ Collaborative, should you be interested. My Iowa Revolution podcast with award-winning broadcaster Spencer Dirks can be found here.
As all your writing, today's is entirely concise and accurate. Two thoughts I have. First, although everyone refers to the right wing as conservative, I prefer right wing extremists. Traditional conservatism had some intellectual heft. Today's right wingers wouldn't know Adam Smith from Adam Sandler, Edmund Burke from Justin Bieber. Second, I have recently been again contemplating Hannah Ahrendt. She wrote of totalitarianism, and I realize DeSantis and Reynolds are would be totalitarians, determined to control all parts of government and society. Then Ahrendt's amazing phrase, "banality of evil," partly refers to the totalitarian foot soldiers who follow orders, who consider it immoral to not go along. The Republican Iowa legislators are essentially mere automatons following and doing what Reynolds and right wing money tell them to do.
Wow, just wow. You nailed it.