Two years ago, George Floyd died while being restrained for resisting arrest. Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering Floyd after videos went viral that showed Chauvin placing his knee on the back of Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.
An autopsy showed that he died from “subdural restraint” and “neck compression” that resulted in heart and lung failure. Floyd’s heart disease and drug use were also contributing factors. His death sparked rioting, looting, and protests around the country. Floyd was mourned as a victim of racism and celebrated as a civil rights hero.
Except that Floyd, whose encounter with police began after he apparently passed counterfeit money, was not a martyr for racial justice nor a victim of racism. Chauvin, who applied the restraint upon Floyd, was convicted of murder, but he was still never charged with a hate crime.
Floyd became the poster child for alleged rampant anti-black racism by the police in the United States, even though such claims have been repeatedly disproven and debunked. Those following his story may be unaware that twice as many whites as blacks are killed by police annually. Although that is not perfectly in proportion with the racial breakdown of the population, it is a lot closer to perfect proportion than is the racial breakdown of those who commit crimes.
Black people make up about 13% of the population. According to the FBI, they commit 54% of all robberies, 33% of aggravated assaults, 29% of all rapes, 30% of all burglaries, et cetera, et cetera. Clearly, there’s going to be a huge discrepancy in black people’s encounters with police. When you look at the data with that in mind, you might almost get the impression that officers are out to get white people.
Would you be surprised to learn that a white man died in nearly identical circumstances to Floyd’s, just without all the media attention? Evidently, a lot of people in media feel there was nothing to gain from focusing on such a story, because it won’t heighten racial tensions or help sustain the impression that America is a hopelessly racist country.
So yes, one could be concerned over the way some policing is done in the U.S. But the narrative that it’s racism, that black criminals are helpless victims of a systemically racist society, is simply false.
Floyd’s death resulted in mass rioting, looting, and arson that caused billions of dollars in damage, devastating mostly minority communities throughout the U.S. It also impelled Democrats and the Left to advocate policies that have since caused more damage and hurt blacks more than the police ever could. Under the guise of protecting black people, Democrats in various places defunded the police, abolished bail, and stopped prosecuting violent repeat criminals. The result? Far more black lives lost. Blacks, after all, account for a majority of murder victims — 9,941 were murdered in 2020, a massive increase over 2019. Compare that to just 17 unarmed black men shot by the police that year, and only six in 2021.
Two years after George Floyd’s death, nearly everything Democrats have done under the banner of “black lives matter” has arguably worsened black lives. The Left is really good at manipulating public opinion to get people angry and win elections. It is not so good at implementing meaningful change to help the black community. And as time goes by, hopefully, more and more black voters are figuring this out.
* Article from: The Washington Examiner
