Grossman’s story becomes another point in this larger narrative about the intractability of police violence. George Floyd, the man on whose behalf Grossman was protesting, is today being laid to rest in Houston, Texas, where he grew up. The Rev. William Lawson, pastor emeritus at Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, is speaking at the funeral this morning. Rev. Lawson acknowledges that the protests surrounding the death of Floyd have turned into a movement. And in becoming the tragic symbol of that movement, Floyd’s life is drawing comparisons with others. His life began in a metaphorical “manger,” says Rev. Lawson, in the “ghetto” of the third ward in Houston. But now, the name George Floyd is known, like other saints, “throughout the world.” He encourages the mourners:

You think something good can’t come out of this? His death did not simply start a bunch of good speeches, a bunch of tributes. Out of his death has come a movement. A worldwide movement. And that movement is not going to stop after two weeks, three weeks, a month. That movement is going to change the world.

Just yesterday, I was afraid nothing much had changed since the Kerner Commission in 1968 or even Truman’s group in 1947. Rev. Lawson surely knows this stony road, yet he seems confident that these last two weeks really have opened something in the nation’s core that has not been opened in its entire existence. I hope he is right. Six years ago, Black Lives Matter existed largely online, a response around St. Louis to the killing of Michael Brown, a problem for the Black community to solve. Today, as Sarah Grossman symbolizes, much more of America sees police violence as something they need to address. That conviction has spread far beyond young, middle-class, college educated, female America. Just seeing the places where protesters have called out George Floyd’s name is inspiring. It’s a long list, hundreds of places, from Alaska to Tasmania, South Africa to Finland. It’s striking how much the world pays attention to what goes on in America, and how little attention Americans pay to anyone else.

It is a heartwarming, tragic, stirring moment. We cannot forget, however, that there are powerful people working very hard to stop change from happening. Trump has blamed Martin Gugino, the protester knocked to the ground by police outfitted in riot gear in Buffalo for staging his own injury, insinuating that the elderly man is part of shadowy Antifa.[4] As he so often does, the president makes these suggestions using a technique tried-and-true by right-winged propagandists—the “expressed uncertainty” prompt of asking leading questions that plant the idea of culpability in the susceptible reader. The technique is not a Trump original, nor is the content. He pulled it from the One American Network, the conspiracy-hatching right-wing successor to Alex Jones’ Infowars. Gugino, in contrast to the president, has labored humbly for decades to feed the hungry, care for the poor, and advocate for the powerless.[5] In other words, while a Catholic peace worker is thrown to the ground and George Floyd’s body is laid to rest, the nation’s president repeats false narratives taken from a fringe media source. Remember that the police initially reported that Gugino had tripped and fallen. It was not until the video of him being shoved to the ground and then left unconscious bleeding on the ground, that the police were forced to change their tune. Trump has repeated a lie about a lie.[6]

Notes

[1] Yaron Steinbuch, “Ohio Protester Dies Two Days after Exposure to Tear Gas, Pepper Spray,” New York Post, June 9, 2020, https://nypost.com/2020/06/09/ohio-woman-dies-after-exposure-to-tear-gas-pepper-spray/; “Sarah Grossman Obituary – Franklin, OH,” Dignity Memorial, May 31, 2020, https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/franklin-oh/sarah-grossman-9203495.

[2] Stephanie Dube Dwilson, “#ForSarah Goes Viral As Columbus Officials Investigate Sarah Grossman’s Death,” Heavy.Com (blog), June 5, 2020, https://heavy.com/news/2020/06/forsarah-goes-viral-as-columbus-officials-investigate-sarah-grossmans-death/.

[3] Jiachuan Wu et al., “Map of George Floyd Protests around the World,” NBC News, June 9, 2020, https://dataviz.nbcnews.com/projects/20200605-floyd-protests-d3-world/index.html.

[4] Inae Oh, “Trump Falsely Accuses an Elderly Buffalo Protester of Staging His Violent Police Encounter.,” Mother Jones (blog), June 9, 2020, https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2020/06/trump-martin-gugino/.

[5] Yonat Shimron, “Trump Tweeted about Martin Gugino. His Friends Say He Is a Catholic Peace Activist, Not an ‘Antifa Provocateur,’” Washington Post, June 9, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/06/09/trump-tweeted-about-martin-gugino-his-friends-say-he-is-catholic-peace-activist-not-an-antifa-provocateur/.

[6] Lili Loofbourow, “What the Video From Buffalo Has Revealed to White America,” Slate Magazine, June 9, 2020, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/06/buffalo-police-video-white-america.html.