{"id":4158,"date":"2020-05-29T16:17:15","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T16:17:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adhc.lib.ua.edu\/pandemicbook\/?page_id=4158"},"modified":"2022-03-18T13:38:20","modified_gmt":"2022-03-18T13:38:20","slug":"05-29","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/adhc.lib.ua.edu\/pandemicbook\/05-29\/","title":{"rendered":"05-29"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Friday, May 29<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUS Cases 0
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May 29: National protests against police brutality escalate<\/a><\/span>. President Trump spends nearly an hour in an underground bunker<\/a><\/span>, as protesters gather in Lafayette Park outside the White House. States call up<\/a><\/span> their National Guards. CNN Center in Atlanta is damaged during protests. Former police officer Derek Chauvin charged with murder and manslaughter. Trump offers<\/a><\/span> sympathy to George Floyd’s family, and then writes in a tweet,  “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Twitter places content warnings on posts made by President Trump encouraging violence against protesters. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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First Amendment-protected protest feels way more complicated during a pandemic. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is on screen calling protesters \u201cwackadoodle.\u201d He wants people to stay at home if they can\u2019t maintain proper six feet distancing during a protest. In a sense, he is right\u2014people on the streets protesting Floyd\u2019s killing are putting themselves and others at risk of infection. Curiously, those concerns weren\u2019t raised when semi-automatic rifle-toting mobs descended on Lansing, Michigan, or Shelley Luther supporters gathered in Dallas. In April, government officials did not claim they needed to send out the national guard to protect public health.<\/span><\/p>

Americans protest. Maybe it’s in our blood. Our country was built on the backs of men throwing tea into Boston Harbor. Even before it was a stand-alone country, America celebrated the protesters, the rabble-rousers. When, during his presidency, Thomas Jefferson came into possession of a lost account of Nathaniel Bacon\u2019s armed insurrection against the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1676, he was overjoyed. For a century, Nathaniel Bacon had been labeled an odious pirate and traitor against his country. President Jefferson, by contrast, commended Nathaniel Bacon as a paragon of the American spirit and his Rebellion as \u201cSuper American.\u201d[1]<\/a> The idea of America has been carried on the shoulders of the people who are willing to go out on the streets and demand justice, to demand the \u201credress of grievances,\u201d as the Constitution says. Protest is a reminder that the social contract still exists. The American Revolution, the Civil Rights movement, the women\u2019s suffrage movement, labor movements, the anti-nuclear movement, and the Black Lives Matter movement are all articulations of deeply American identity.<\/span><\/p>

The streets are exploding this week in part because George Floyd\u2019s murder is horrifying, scandalous, terrible. I was speechless with shock the first time I watched it. In truth, I can\u2019t bear to watch it all. It is a snuff film, no different than a video of a jihadist beheading. Such outrage demands action.<\/span><\/p>

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But the streets are also raging because George Floyd\u2019s death is not exceptional. In March, just after lockdowns started, Louisville, Kentucky police issued a no-knock warrant to raid the home of Kenneth Walker and Breonna Taylor at 1am. With no warning, officers barged into Walker and Taylor\u2019s house in the middle of the night. Walker, who thought that a home invasion was happening, shot an officer in the leg. Eight officers fired into their home 22 times, killing Breonna Taylor. Police claim that the home was being used as a drug drop site, but searches found no evidence of that. Protests have been ongoing as police do nothing to address what is being called a botched raid.<\/span>[2]<\/a> Not one cop has been arrested or indicted for Breonna Taylor\u2019s murder. Last night, seven people in the Louisville protests were shot. Police say it wasn\u2019t them.<\/span>[3]<\/a><\/p>

George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and on and on. The system of racism\u2014the entrenched power inequities\u2014are bleeding out on pavements, on shop floors, even inside the supposed sanctum of homes. The racism that was supposed to have been addressed in the 1960s and \u201970s\u2014after the Civil Rights Act, after the Black Panthers and the Weathermen and SNCC, after Miranda Rights and all the rest. But after seeing that video of the police officer\u2019s knee on the neck and back of George Floyd for eight grinding minutes, it is hard to feel anything other than insensate fury. Without a trial, without so much as an \u201cattorney will be appointed for you,\u201d a man\u2019s life was squeezed out of him as coldly as if a python had dropped onto him from out of a tree. A woman was gunned down in her home. A man was chased down and lynched on camera. Our country needs a massive correction, or, it needs to be torn down so we can try again from scratch. Hell yes, people need to hit the streets.<\/span><\/p>

Even Tim Walz recognizes that many in his audience do not believe him when he promises that he and the city government will address the crisis, that people need to go home. He acknowledges generations of distrust towards the police and the government among the African American community.<\/span><\/p>

Governor Tim Walz: (01:19:40<\/a>)<\/span>
Right now I know there\u2019s a lot of folks out there listening that their answers should be I\u2019ll believe it when I see it. I\u2019ll believe it when justice is carried out. I\u2019ll believe it when equity actually means something. I\u2019ll believe it when the policies change. I\u2019ll believe it when my child gets the same education as your child and that color didn\u2019t matter. I get it right now. We\u2019re asking an awful lot to be based on faith and that has not panned out.[4]<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>

Indeed. Maybe this can help to explain why the looting is happening. We all may love a protest, filled with noble images of Gandhi fasting and Martin Luther King marching across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama. But in some cases\u2014the Boston Tea Party, for instance\u2014looting seems called for. Across the internet, a quote of King\u2019s is appearing for just this occasion: \u201c\u2026a riot is the language of the unheard.\u201d<\/span><\/p>

Tonight, it gets real. Starting at around 7pm CT, looters hit businesses in Minneapolis: a supermarket, a Wendy\u2019s, an AutoZone, the local Target. Police stand on top of the 3rd<\/sup> Street Precinct occasionally firing flash grenades and tear gas into the protesters on Lake Street, who are not looting, just chanting. At 9:30 PM, a group of those police come down off the building and form a cordon. Firefighters arrive at the AutoZone, which is very much ablaze by now. A half-hour later, police gradually push what is left of the protesters and very many bystanders\u2014many of whom look young\u2014down the street. On my computer screen, it looks like they are firing flashbangs and tear gas indiscriminately. Meanwhile, another group sets the 3rd<\/sup> Police Precinct ablaze\u2014police must have abandoned it sometime during the evening.[5]<\/a><\/span><\/p>

That\u2019s the \u201cbreaking news\u201d constantly flashing across screens. While people who feel powerless protest and burn, the powerful use the pandemic and the outcry against police brutality that these marches are calling for in order to maintain control.<\/span><\/p>

More and more, this year is starting to feel like 1918 and 1928 crashed into 1968. This has become a year of multiple<\/em> epidemics. Coronavirus, of course, has disproportionately affected communities of color, both urban and rural. But that\u2019s followed by ascending police violence. Unemployment. Rampant corruption. A deeply divided presidential election coming. Leadership that seems careless at best, possibly even malevolent. A country that has forgotten how to communicate across ideological lines. A slippage in empathy. It trickles down from the top. Looting by a citizenry echoing the looting by its elected officials.<\/span><\/p>

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The New York Times Video, “How a Night of Chaos in Minneapolis Unfolded [May 28],” May 29, 2020. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=tRmqEbP0G6I<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Nick Valencia, “Violent George Floyd protests at CNN Center unfold live on TV,” May 29, 2020. https:\/\/youtu.be\/Yve9DhT8Nt4<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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