https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/floyd-s-brother-trump-didn-t-give-me-the-opportunity-to-even-speak/vi-BB14OReM?ocid=spartan-dhp-feeds
Both the accused killer and the victim had English as their language. It wasn't a matter of not being able to understand that the man had a need for air when he said he couldn't breathe. It was another matter altogether that allowed the accused killer to refuse aid to a dying man. Hopefully the killer's intentions will be revealed at trial for the whole world to see. As for now this is what the world knows from Bloomberg Quick Take.
This is how I frame the incident. A Citizen needed help from a Public Servant who responded by acting in a way that may very well have resulted in the Citizen's death. The Citizen was speaking English which the Public Servant also understood. What happened was not a misunderstanding. A cry for help from a Citizen was ignored by a Public Servant who is charged with providing aid in circumstances when a Citizen is in distress. That's how I am understanding this.
What are Citizens to think when they ask the State (in the person of it's representative) to aid them and the State responds the way it did in this instance? What would you think if it happened to your dad or brother or your neighbor? Probably the same thing they would think if it happened to you! And so Minneapolis has a riot that would not have occurred if the Public Servants had acted like servants.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once observed that “A riot, is the language of the unheard.”
https://time.com/3838515/baltimore-riots-language-unheard-quote/
The murder of George Floyd also reveals an even greater horror walking the streets of the U.S.
The death of this man reminds us that the State is deaf when it's citizens appeal for help in plain English. We, the American People, are facing the same intransigent refusal to hear us when we appeal to the State to help us on many fronts. The Trump Administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic is representative of the help provided by the Public Servants who let George Floyd die while pleading for the State to help a Citizen. One man died in Minneapolis and over 100,000 and counting are dead due to a mishandled pandemic response. The COVID-19 response of the Trump Administration is representative of the total deafness of the State in it's response to the needs of the residents of Main Street America.
In one way or another Americans are in the same boat that George Floyd was in. We need help and the State does not hear us crying. That is why riots are the language of the unheard. The State hears that, but it no longer understands English and if it does it is ignoring the People. Do you think the State will ever regain it's hearing or it's intended purpose?
Have a nice day.
