White Female Republican on BLM
Black lives matter. White lives matter. Democratic, republican, independent and all parties’ in-between lives matter. All lives matter. YOU matter.
9/11 made me aware of terrorism for the first time. Newtown made me cry for weeks; still gets to me if I think about it too long. George Floyd…complete and utter outrage, disappointment, disgrace, and disgust grand enough to want me to announce a personal apology to the entire world for every bad thing that ever has happened and will happen.
What is with people???
I know plenty of cops. My best friend’s husband is a retired sergeant and I’ve heard dozens of real-life stories. I’ve dated a couple of cops (not at the same time, of course!) I’m in with the local police department after having participated in an active shooting drill and a police academy for nine weeks where our class of nearly twenty people have been educated at a very high-level what the PD goes through, how they’re trained, exercises in safety; we even went to the gun range and did a ride-along. I met several wonderful and honorable men and women doing what they should be doing.
Restraining a large man on the ground was one of the safety exercises. It was volunteers from the class, not the cops, and it was to prove the level of effort it takes to hold someone down and the strength the restrained actually has. It’s a lot! It took four classmates to restrain one man.
So, I understand why it took that many officers to keep George Floyd contained. There is no reason on Earth why it had to go on that long. I’m angry.
Why in the world didn’t anyone do anything????? If I were anywhere around, I would have grabbed Derek by the neck and pulled him off of George in a heartbeat screaming, “What the hell are you doing?? Get off of him!” (I’m not afraid of the police, remember?) Besides, what would have happened? You think Derek would have charged at me to harm me? I’m a girl. And there would have been enough people watching who would have rescued me. More importantly, it would have proved that he was not a nice cop.
Okay, scratch that. The moron would have shot me dead.
What about the other cops holding George down? I don’t care how new you are to the force. Common sense should have dictated that, and it was completely in their power to do the right thing and stop Derek. At what point does it become a human issue rather than a law enforcement issue? I don’t care what role or what job or what class or what education or what income or what problems anyone has. Wrong is wrong.
You spend more time watching the news than I do, so I’m not getting into the details because you’re already well-aware. But I also want to say that the older members of my family are largely anti-black. My grandfather was beaten within an inch of his life by a group of black men. Another family member was attacked and fended off her attempted rapist in an airport bathroom, also a black man. My cousin married a black man and her parents disowned her for many years. He is a respectable cop and was on the team that took down the DC sniper. They came around… I’m not into stereotypes, but I am a fact-based realist.
Sure, there’s unlimited and uncontrollable unrest in our country with George Floyd and the few other headlines we’re seeing. What are we not seeing? We’re not seeing the hundreds of thousands of heroic stories where black men are questioned, arrested, contained, restrained, and not victimized. We’re not seeing white men getting killed by police. We’re not seeing the kindness that happens every single day at every single traffic stop and every single dispatch call.
Much like we only hear about the one deadly plane crash, we’re not reminded on the evening news that over a million flights landed safely.
I’m trying to keep it in perspective and be fair to what the media is hiding from us in its effort to glorify racism.
Yes, I’m aware there is no way that sounded humane. Because there is no humaneness in the George Floyd case. There is no fairness in his family and friends having to grieve.
These riots going on all over? Business getting burned to the ground when they’re already struggling because of the coronavirus and people getting hurt and shots fired into crowds and looting and fighting…all in the name of peace??? Are you kidding me?
My best friend asked me, “Does George Soros really hate Trump that much that he’s creating all this chaos by funding and starting all this?”
Full disclosure, I never heard of the guy. I just had to look up how to spell his last name and I have no desire to research him. It doesn’t matter. My response to her was this:
“Sure. If Hillary Clinton were elected rather than Trump, I would have been ticked off. I wouldn’t have cried myself to sleep or wave my gun around, but I’d be raging for a while. You couldn’t get me to listen to a single interview about or with the Clintons, and the Trump haters aren’t exactly watching the State of the Union! They don’t ignore the media and check facts to see what he has accomplished or the optimism he promotes. Just like when Obama was elected, I quit watching TV because I can’t even look at the guy without getting sick to my stomach. So, yeah, people are hyped up and unsettled. I understand the anger; I don’t understand the actions.”
See, this is just to show that I can play devil’s advocate and see the other side.
Is he right? I don’t know. I’m not paying attention. He’s rich and he’s doing something about it.
What I absolutely know for sure is while the Black Lives Matter movement is the highlight of the century right now, and whether or not it’s being handled properly (whatever properly is), if any person, black or otherwise, loses his life to the bad apples like Derek Chauvin, it’s wrong. Plain and simple. And for that, I’m glad to see the passion and commitment. I’m saddened for any harm that is coming from misplaced actions based on good intentions.
I wonder. If the virus hadn’t already had people on anxiety overload, would George have gotten the same reaction? Or would it have been a headline and a week of riots and the end of it like the rest of them? Truly, I don’t want to dissect that; simply curious.
Put me in a room unarmed screaming “I Support Trump!” with an entire police department of cops armed with guns and I’ll feel as safe as a baby in a blanket. Put me in front of bad cops like Derek Chauvin and I’ll do the same thing you would. Although, I do have my own twist…I say that Derek Chauvin should be punished in the same exact manner as George’s demise. This whole prison thing is stupid and expensive.
I take it back. Not all lives matter. Harry Weinstein and Ariel Castro deserved to be passed over during suicide watch and my utmost gratitude and kudos to the guards who left them alone three minutes too long.
Not too crazy about animal abusers, child abusers, serial killers, serial rapists, and the like. I won’t go as far as to say their lives don’t matter, but what a difference it would make if they were centered enough to at least be aware they need to seek help. Derek is a bad man who happened to be a cop.
That may seem like a different issue entirely, but it’s really not. Each of us has within us the ability to get our own heads straight and not victimize others. Everyone around us has the ability to tell us when we’re being unfair and wrong. The responsibility is upon all of us to do the right thing and to encourage others to do the right thing.
How nice would that be?
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