Curated in Equality | Race | Society

George Floyd: What Would Gandhi, Mandela and Dr. King Say

He worked as a boxer in a restaurant and was laid off due to the pandemic

His brother, Terrence Floyd, said, “Black lives matter too,..” but he couldn’t complete his sentence and cried.

The incident

George Floyd bought a pack of cigarettes at 7:50 pm on the 25th of May 2020. “The $20 bill is a fake, he is awfully drunk and not in control of himself,” reported the employees of Cup Foods to the authorities in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Officer J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane were the first ones to approach the vehicle in which George Floyd was sitting on 8:08 pm. They handcuffed him. He was not violent but looked distressed.

A few minutes later, the officers took him to their police car, where Floyd refused to sit in the car and told the officers that he was claustrophobic. He said that he could not breathe. Then officers Derek Chauvin — 17 complaints against him — and Tou Thao — 6 complaints against him — arrived at the scene. Tou was once sued for brutality in 2017, and Derek has been involved in three police shootings including a fatal one. Officer Derek Chauvin pulled him out of the vehicle. Floyd was lying face down on the road, and Chauvin pinned him down with a knee on his neck. He said, sixteen times, that he could not breathe, but the officers ignored his requests. “Mama,” Floyd said twice, “Mama”.

He said, sixteen times, that he could not breathe but the officers ignored his requests.

One of the bystanders, filming the incident, a few minutes later, told the officer, “bro, he is not moving, bro, he is not responding, bro, he is not breathing bro…” Then the officers called an ambulance. Floyd died on 9:25 pm in a nearby hospital, according to the New York Times.

The four officers involved were fired immediately, and Derek Chauvin has been charged for murder and manslaughter.

Who was George Floyd

He was 46 years old. His daughter is six years old.

Floyd was a talented athlete in his high school days. Stephen Jackson, a retired NBA player, said he was my brother, in his condolence message. Floyd also recorded hip-hop songs in Houston in the 90s under the name Big Floyd. In 2007, he was charged by police for an armed robbery, and he served five years in prison. After his release in 2014, he worked as a truck driver and as a boxer at a restaurant in Minneapolis.

Nationwide protests

Everybody can imagine, and see on video, the plight of George Floyd. Everybody can picture themselves in his place. Everybody is rightly outraged.

Imagine that you are telling a police officer again and again that you cannot breathe. Picture the scene, and you cannot sit still and do nothing. But the road to violence does not lead to justice — it may lead to random acts of terror.

Imagine the scene and you cannot sit still and do nothing.

The protests are not just an expression to get justice for George Floyd, but an outcry to get justice for all who could be in his place. It was a random event but one experienced by many in the past. In those cases, someone got lucky and did not die, but the police brutality evolved into systemic oppression, one that was often overlooked by those who held power.

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Now the protests have gone nationwide. Strictest curfews have been imposed in around 40 cities.

CNN reports

On 1st of June 2020, around 20,000 National Guard have been activated to handle the nationwide protests, according to a Defense Department official. Twenty-eight states and Washington, DC, have activated National Guard.

Donald Trump tweeted

New York was lost to the looters, thugs, Radical Left, and all other forms of Lowlife & Scum. The Governor refuses to accept my offer of a dominating National Guard. NYC was ripped to pieces.

On Monday, Trump called on the nation’s governors to “get tougher” and “dominate” the protests.

Trump has also threatened military action if unrest continues.

What Barrack Obama said

He wants everybody to try to find a political solution. In an article, he wrote, “the waves of protests across the country represent a genuine and legitimate frustration over a decades-long failure to reform police practices and the broader criminal justice system in the United States.”

But watching the heightened activism of young people in recent weeks, of every race and every station, makes me hopeful. ~ Barrack Obama

He encouraged everybody to remain peaceful and wrote, “If we want our criminal justice system, and American society at large, to operate on a higher ethical code, then we have to model that code ourselves.”

What Bill Clinton said

In his statement, he said, “It is impossible not to feel grief for his family — and anger, revulsion, and frustration that his death is the latest in a long line of tragedy and injustice, and a painful reminder that a person’s race still determines how they will be treated in nearly every aspect of American life.”

No one deserves to die the way George Floyd did. And the truth is, if you’re white in America, the chances are you won’t. ~ Bill Clinton

He also said, “We’ll never reach Martin Luther King’s dream if we keep treating people of color with the unspoken assumption that they’re less human.”

If George Floyd had been white, handcuffed, and lying on the ground, would he be alive today? ~ Bill Clinton

What would Gandhi say?

Gandhi practiced the principle of Ahimsa — or nonviolence — during his protests against the British. He believed that nonviolence was not only a weapon of the weak; it was a weapon for all.

He would say, “Blessed is the man who can perceive the law of nonviolence in the midst of the raging fire of violence all around him.”

An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind. ~Gandhi

Nonviolent activism means mass noncooperation, written material, cultural, and different economic forms of protesting.

Velvet Revolution 1989 in Czechoslovakia is an example of a nonviolent revolution that resulted in the overthrow of the Communist regime.

What would Nelson Mandela say?

Nelson Mandela, in his biography, the Long Walk to Freedom, said, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

Nelson Mandela spent 28 years in prison fighting apartheid. He would say that we should protest peacefully, without the fear of getting arrested, but he would not recommend using violence against innocent people and their property.

“Nonviolent philosophy contributed in no small measure to bringing about a peaceful transformation in South Africa and in healing the destructive human divisions that had been spawned by the abhorrent practice of apartheid,” ~Mandela.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” ~ Nelson Mandela

He would say that no form of violence can ever be excused in a society that wishes to call itself decent.

What would Dr. Martin Luther King say?

He would advise us to be nonviolent. He would say that violence was immoral. He would say that those of us who believed in nonviolence could be voices of reason, sanity, and understanding amid the voices of violence, hatred, and emotion.

Dr. King was also influenced by Henry David Thoreau’s essay On Civil Disobedience. Its theme was noncooperation.

Dr. King dreamed of a day when his “four little children would be judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Dr. King believed in Gandhi’s theory of nonviolence. His April 1959 trip to India deepened his knowledge of nonviolent resistance and his resolve to use it in his struggle against racism.

Takeaway

No amount of needless violence will bring George Floyd back. Putting innocent lives at risk will not solve this administrative reform problem. The subculture of police brutality will become stronger if Trump keeps pushing the local authorities to dominate.

We can’t sit in our homes, it would be cowardice. We have to come out, but we have to remain nonviolent. We have to wear a face mask that shows our genuine concern. We have to walk together, in silence, keeping social distance, and in expectation of a positive change. The images in the international media should show peaceful democratic protests. We are supporters of democracy, and we cannot let ourselves be misled by a heated sentiment.

Let’s flood the internet with our candid opinions. Let’s use our written words to protest against this injustice. Your anger and violence in the street is a temporary relief. Record your anger permanently on the internet; the nonviolent weapon is in your hand.

George Floyd’s brother, Terrence Floyd, delivered a simple, yet powerful, message for those committing violence: “He would not want y’all to be doing this.”

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