George Floyd's death is abhorrent but at present protestors are twats

George Floyd's death whilst abhorrent in the extreme just highlights an issue that has been ongoing in the good ole US of A for more than a few decades.

Today I called protestors twats.... not because their cause isn't important or a noble one, or one that shouldn't continue to be protested for. But because it puts other people's lives at risk in the present climate of Coronavirus. It's unfortunate timing but just as we're getting Corronavirus under control in the UK this type of action with thousands in close proximity to each other could cause a 2nd wave,  months more of lockdown, and yes possibly thousands of more deaths.

Here's the thing, I call anyone who exhibits behavior that suggests a lack of common sense or respect for others, Twats.
Johnson was/is a twat for various comments and actions including the Handshake one.
Trump is a twat for so many comments I'm not going to try and list specific one.
Other people are Twats for littering beaches not respecting others and the world, etc.
Hell, I've done some twattish things in my life when younger.

No one knows the full impact that running the Cheltenham festival had on the spread of the virus. No one will know the impact that thousands of protestors in close proximity will have, but we will find out in a month's time. Let's hope that a 2nd wave isn't caused by these protests and that a few thousand more people don't die of coronavirus because of thousands of people protesting, however good their intentions are.

Black lives matter but more importantly all lives matter. 

Anyway, rant over back to the very important deep-rooted problem that exists in certain areas and people of this world.  There are some very graphic and horrific descriptions below. I've posted them so people can understand the depths that racial hatred goes to.  Let's hope that this particular incident can be the spark that fuels genuine change. However, something that is ingrained into society is not that easy to get rid of.

Derek Chauvin the cop that allegedly killed George Floyd

So is Derek Chauvin a racist or a cop that made a very bad mistake?  Certainly, it didn't look like a mistake but no doubt more on that will come to light, his wife has been quick to distance herself filing for divorce and a name change as well.

Just as recently as 22 years ago in the USA James Byrd Jr. was dragged behind a pickup truck to his death by white supremacists that obviously thought that lynching was a bit un PC. 

Lee knows exactly who Jesse Washington was. His parents told him the story as a child. Lee has told it to his four children, and shown them the frightful pictures. “Future generations need to know what happened,” Lee says.
In a nearby barbershop, the lynching is common knowledge. “Even today, you get caught up in the wrong place in Texas, you gone,” says Keith Pullens, 34, the shop owner. A conversation ensues about towns and counties to be avoided, lest a brother end up dying like James Byrd Jr., dragged behind a pickup truck by white supremacists in Jasper, 220 miles to the east, in 1998.

Thousands of blacks were lynched, tortured, burned alive with Jesse Washington being just one of the many who were charged with various misdemeanors, some found guilty on the basis of very flimsy evidence and murdered in horrible ways.  This would be a very, very long blog if I mentioned all of them in detail so I just picked three, two men one woman, they all died horrifically. Jesse was 17 and the date was May the 8th 1916 104 years ago.

The verdict and death sentence were barely spoken when the mob surged forward, carried Jesse out the back door of the courthouse and dragged him to the square outside City Hall. The chain around his neck was flung over a tree. He was dangled above a large dry goods box filled with wood, which had been prepared earlier that morning.
While Jesse was still alive, “Fingers, ears, pieces of clothing, toes and other parts of the negro’s body were cut off by members of the mob,” the Waco Times-Herald reported. Someone castrated Jesse, according to the NAACP investigation, and carried his penis around in a handkerchief, showing it off as a souvenir.
The killers yanked Jesse into the air, then lowered him into the woodpile and poured coal oil over him. About 10,000 people crowded the area, according to the Waco Times-Herald, hanging from nearby windows and perched atop buildings and trees. “As the negro’s body commenced to burn,” the paper reported, “shouts of delight went up from the thou¬sands of throats.”
Jesse burned for two hours, leaving just a skull, torso and limb stumps. A horseman lassoed the body and dragged it through town until the head popped off. Some boys extracted Jesse’s teeth and sold them for $5 each. The headless mess was dragged behind a car to Robinson and hung in a sack outside a blacksmith’s shop, until a constable took it away that evening. Jesse was buried in an unmarked grave. https://theundefeated.com/features/the-waco-horror 

Trump doesn't help with comments like the one below which if anyone else said it would be accused of inciting violence no doubt some good ole boy gun nut will take it as the OK to start a mini-war.

Donald J. Trump 29 May at 06:10
I can’t stand back and watch this happen to a great American City, Minneapolis. A total lack of leadership. Either the very weak Radical Left Mayor, Jacob Frey, get his act together and bring the City under control, or I will send in the National Guard & get the job done right. These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!

It's not a problem that is easily going to go away, especially when there are those that will fuel the fire to further an agenda. It basically relies on the really racist ones dying off over generations. A long process as children generally pick up on the parent's racialist ideals.

But whilst it still goes on the US is definitely a better place than it was 20, 50, 100 years ago let's hope it and other countries continue to progress and gradually eradicate the racialists.

There hasn't been a lynching of a black person since 1981 in the USA, 39 years if you can call that some sort of progress.  Michael Donald whose death and subsequent lawsuit led to the bankruptcy of the United Klans of America.

The men pursued Donald, attacked him and beat him with a tree limb. Hays wrapped a rope around Donald's neck and pulled on it to strangle him while Knowles continued to beat Donald with a tree branch. Once Donald had stopped moving, Hays slit his throat three times to make sure he was dead. The men left Donald's body hanging from a tree in a mixed-race neighborhood in Mobile. The tree was on Herndon Street, across from a house owned by Klan leader Bennie Jack Hays, the father of Henry Hays.

Not just men either, the last woman to be lynched in the US was probably Mary Turner

According to accounts on the lynching, when Mrs. Mary Turner was brought the news of her husband’s lynching by “persons unknown,” she was eight months pregnant. Even though she was close to giving birth to her first child, she openly expressed the innocence of her lynched husband, cursed the mob, and threatened to obtain warrants for their arrest. Consequently, almost 100 years ago to the date, on May 19, 1918, she and her unborn baby became additional victims of the lynch mob’s wrath. 

[The following contains graphic details of the lynching.]
Mrs. Mary Turner and her unborn baby experienced a horrific and unimaginable death. Mrs. Turner was bound and hanged from a tree, set on fire, and her body was riddled with bullets, her screams of terror and pain only to be heard by her perpetrators, and the torture and mutilation continued. The life of her unborn baby ended when the baby was crudely cut from her abdomen and one of lynchers crushed its head with the heel of his shoe. {link}  (Just to reiterate Mary Turners crime was she expressed the innocence of her lynched husband, cursed the mob, and threatened to obtain warrants for their arrest.)

Obviously, there are thousands of cases of racialism experienced in the US and other countries that are less extreme than lynchings and torture. I post the above though as they are not so long ago and to remind us of the depth of which some will go and there are thousands of similar cases.

Racialism doesn't go, it hides beneath the surface and festers.


LINKS
BBC - George Floyd death: Thousands join London protest
BBC-George Floyd: What happened in the final moments of his life
Fox9-911 transcript of call that brought police to George Floyd released
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2020/05/31/276-arrested-driver-who-rolled-into-protest-arrested
https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/05/31/ex-prosecutor-complaint-against-minnesota-cop-derek-chauvin-in-george-floyd-case-drops-important-clues/
https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/posts/10164767134275725
NAACP-HISTORY OF LYNCHINGS
https://www.naacp.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/NAACP_anti_lynch.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_in_the_United_States
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/26/lynchings-memorial-us-south-montgomery-alabama
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-york-slave-revolt-1712-was-bloody-prelude-decades-hardship-180958665/
https://www.tulsahistory.org/exhibit/1921-tulsa-race-massacre
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/photos/lynching?mediatype=photography&page=2&phrase=lynching&sort=best
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/till/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/10/22/more-than-people-have-been-lynched-us-trump-isnt-one-them/
https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/jan/25
https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/explore/texas/henry-smith
https://theundefeated.com/features/the-waco-horror
Lynchings: By Year and Race
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Byrd_Jr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_of_Jesse_Washington
https://rediscovering-black-history.blogs.archives.gov/2018/05/16/lynching-of-women-in-united-states-blog-series-the-lynching-of-mrs-mary-turner-and-her-family/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1918_lynchings
https://sites.google.com/view/wiregrassrdhp/mary-turner