Why the George Floyd Thing Was Different — at Least For Me

It was not just a homicide, and not just a murder

Why do so many people feel so badly about what happened to George Floyd? We’ll ignore the ones who think it was not a big deal — sadly that would mostly be white folks; and to a certain extent white Republicans who haven’t yet had the courage to be honest about it. I know…I live near some such folk, who are otherwise kind and considerate, but cannot quite condemn what happened to George Floyd.

I’ve watched bits and pieces of the trial. I’ve seen and heard the testimony and the evidence — in particular the sick and twisted last-minute flailing of the (highly-paid) defense experts. Nothing new there, as I’ve seen all that before, and many times.

For those of us with feeling, with morals, with a sense of justice, and with a soul (and some Soul)— the reason we feel so sick inside about George Floyd, so sick and tired and so tired and sick, like we can’t watch anymore but can’t turn away, and why we feel like it was like nothing else we’d ever seen…

It was a lynching…and we saw it right before our very eyes. That’s why we who can feel are so sick at heart and in our souls. That’s why it feels so bad, and different. It’s why it feels like a knife in the gut or like a blow to the face.

A black man was lynched right in front of us — not on a tree far away in space and time, or tied to a bumper on a truck in the boonies, or while jogging on a road far away in time and space, but right there on the pavement, while we watched. With a white cop’s knee on his neck and an arrogant look on the cop’s face. That’s why it feels so bad and so different — and why it should feel that way.

I still feel sick in my stomach and my heart, and sick in my Soul , and that’s why. We should all be sick at this.

If you didn’t know, know you know.