I Can’t Breathe ~ George Floyd
When The Looting Starts The Shooting Starts ~ President Of the United States of America
Simply copy and paste quotes above onto your internet search engine and you'll know where we’re going today.
I am not one to usually delve into racial matters HOWEVER on this occasion I shall be climbing down from that comfortable fence that I’m usually perched, because it has reached a stage where it’s simply NOT ok to say ‘I'm NOT Racist’ it's just not enough! One is either ANTI-racist or you are indeed a racist. It's not ok to say ‘I don't want to be involved’ as that monster may one day walk across the room and kick you in the teeth.
What a week! Those of you that know me personally know how I feel about videos that are circulated via Whatsapp , I simply don't watch them unless they're forwarded to me by a select few. Reason for this is most are just crap, either glorifying violence, dry humour, distasteful, patronising, a waste of my precious time or just blatantly perverse/inappropriate/illegal and I get worried someday I’ll be pulled up by some ‘Oga Olopa’ then asked to hand over my phone and that will be it….. as you all watch me on the evening news as the Nigerian woman charged for possessing some dodgy video forwarded to her by a Whatsapp contact under the pretext they were ‘just educating you Ola’ (as Top Female Police Officer, Chief Superintendent Novett Robyn Williams found out the hard way…… incidentally she is ‘Black British’ 👀 )
Possibly the reason I missed the video of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis on Monday, as he lay there pinned down in handcuffs dying under the knee of a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, for 8 minutes and gasped the words ‘I Can't Breathe.’ It must have been lost among the numerous videos I'd deleted from THOSE Whatsapp groups without watching.
When my phone pings with a video from one of my trusted whatsapp contacts, Itunu, it’s a given that it will be something that will capture my attention. As I open the video I see this scrawny woman standing in the woods with her dog screeching as she’s yelling “I'm gonna tell THEM there is an African American man threatening my life” to the person filming her. I wonder what's going on here?? Who are the ‘THEM’ she refers to?? Who is filming her?? Next thing she's on the phone to 911 and makes good her ‘threat’. I run to my new past time, The Streets of Twitter, to update myself and there the full story unfolds…. the scrawny ‘pathetic excuse of a woman’ on video is a lady known as Amy Cooper ( I really don't like recapping on what is topical and out in the public domain, but I will here as I appreciate my narrative could lose context without).
It transpires that Christian Cooper, a black American, was the person filming Amy Cooper. ( No relation, coincidentally they just happen to share same name) He had simply asked her to leash her dog as was the law in that part of Central Park where their paths crossed as he had been bird watching that morning. Amy’s response to his request was to phone the police and tell them that her life was under threat, changing the tone and decibel of her voice making herself sound very scared. I can just imagine if things had gone the way she wanted and later on that her recorded 911 call had been played in a court, it would have been very convincing 🤔. I have never understood why people flip out phones and start recording until instances like this occur.
Racism is not getting worst, it's simply getting filmed ~ Will Smith
She was even strangling the dog with the leash as she made the call, to ensure it screeched, barked and yelped loudly adding authenticity to her fake report.
After Amy Cooper leashed the dog as he requested, Christian strolled off casually unaware whether the police ‘came to her aid or not’ Can you imagine how different this narrative could have panned out 🤔
Her plan was to get Christian Cooper arrested, brutalised and possibly killed. Exercising her ‘ White Privilege’. There was so much outrage over this video that even her employers, Franklin Templeton were appalled to the extent of terminating her employment. But I would equate her termination with a mere slap on the wrist! A man could have lost his life, furthermore ‘Making a false report is a criminal offence’ so why was she not charged? 🤔
People were further outraged as Christian Cooper is a Harvard graduate, a former Marvel Comics editor and now the senior biomedical editor at Health Science Communications, but that is neither here nor there and we people are once again getting it twisted my point being; even if Christian had simply been a ‘THUG’ (to use Mr President’s words!!!) from ‘The Hood’ it would still not justify Amy’s illegal act.
The police officer, Derek Chauvin, has since been arrested and charged with the offence of 3rd Degree murder of George Floyd, while his wife filed for divorce the same day! It took 3 days for him to be charged and when prosecutors were questioned over this, they explained this is the quickest time frame they had ever charged a police officer as usually took around 9 MONTHS to make such charges stick!!!!
People it's time to wake up, smell the coffee and receive sense, how on earth any person of colour can justify a vote for Donald Trump based on the grounds that he purportedly aligns on the side of morality is beyond me. How can anyone further explain/defend his directive
‘When the looting starts the shooting starts’ in response to the riots that broke out as reaction to the inhumane treatment and death of George Floyd??
MY people come up with limp arguments like ‘ah but there is tribalism in our country, Igbo against Yoruba, Hausa against Igbo’, but what has that got to do with anything? Should we therefore ignore what's going on thereby putting ourselves at par with Holocaust denial an offence incidentally!
Or what has the ‘Black on Black’ narrative got to do with the matter on ground? And funny how the term ‘White On White’ has not been coined🤔
I could go on for days but i’ll stop here, hopefully you've caught my drift 😐
Rather ironic that the Amy Cooper and George Floyd incidents happened on the same day Monday, 25th May 2020. It's a real ‘Na Wa’. And to think in an interview with CNN after the incident Amy says she is not a racist and that HER LIFE has been destroyed, beggars belief!
Your thoughts please, have a good week ahead.
Happy Birthday to our dearest Kuda…… all those candles😘💕🎈🎁🎉🎊
💅🏾
The hottest place in hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
Yipppeeeeee!!!@
ReplyDeleteI'm first.
Ko ni da fun iya won.
You took them words right out of my mouth!❤
DeleteStill can't get the George Floyd videos out of my mind.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely outrageous.
Just callous.
As for Trump, there are no words.
What a pathetic despicable 'leader'.
Disgrace to humanity.
Black lives matter.
ReplyDeleteEvery life matters.
Our future matters even more!
2020 has provided many lessons about what's important - life, death and all in between.
ReplyDeleteTwo things are however not NEW; people getting killed by an invisible enemy (diseases and in this case, Covid-19) and a visible one (Police); with the usual refrain: “Now is not the time to rush to judgement”.
Some things just don't change...its in the nature/essence of the beast to retreat only if confronted with a superior threat. Unfortunately, it only retreats - subdued and contained; but with the threat not being exterminated; the cycle continues.
Deeply disturbed about the trend, one incident too many.
ReplyDeleteParticularly disturbed at the casual manner, hand in pocket when police officer Chauvin knelt on Floyd.
Another good one Ola. I am hoping with bated breath that justice will be served to Chauvin & co as a deterrent to systemic racism by the police not just in US but also in this country.
ReplyDeleteAs for our peeps wey dey applaud No. 45..... hmmm I plead the 5th on that.
I watched the video, Chauvin is definitely a killer - this was first degree murder carried out with intent.... so 3rd degree manslaughter bi bawo? May the natural laws and the laws of God rise up against him even if judicial law acquits him is my prayer.
Imagine Amy Cooper saying Her life has been destroyed; when she was aiming to destroy Christian’s life with that phone call to the police! All she got was a loss of job and removal of her dog; that probably wouldn’t have been the case for the African American man... #white privilege.
ReplyDeleteAnd another resounding message for our African brothers and sisters who feel you just have to talk, behave and have the life style of a white person and racism would elude you!
This is not what America needs at this time. In the middle of a pandemic, a recession, loss of jobs and an election in November.
ReplyDeleteBlacks must come out in November and vote. Do this for Floyd.
Nice one Risi. AmeriKKKa for the want of a better word is a failed state. Racism is its original sin and it learnt everything from her cousin the UKkk.
ReplyDeleteEverybody has a right to vote for who they want to vote for but when I see my people who are in love with Trump, I always try to understand their rationale. If they support his economic policies, I give it a pass but when I see miseducated Negroes supporting his racist policies and justify racism in AmeriKKKa on the grounds that:
a) Why are you screaming when there is black on black crime
b) If we fix Africa then there would be no racism
c) There are too many immigrants in AmeriKKKa (yes you heard right, a number of our brethren’s think there are too many immigrants)
I explore further.
Based on my analysis, there are several reasons for this:
1) They suffer from Stockholm Syndrome
2) They watch a lot of God Channel and live by every word that proceedeth from the mouths of white evangelicals
3) The veneration of billionaires who are assumed to be the smartest room in the room. Since Trump is a billionaire, he has a following among those who aspire to become a billionaire one day.
4) Since they come from a country where racism does not exist (although tribalism does) they are dismissive of it
5) Miseducation.
@Alatenumo
I was traumatized watching the video. Practically snuffing the life out of the victim like a chicken, even animals sometimes get more dignifying in death.
ReplyDeleteI was further enraged by the countenance of the Chinese cop who did nothing but stood by to watch an innocent man murdered.
This a pure case of murder as intention to kill was formed the moment the aggressor refused to budge when the victim declared he could not breathe.
And that autopsy report is another thing entirely as it has exonerated the killer. I hope Floyd will get justice.
😮😬🤧😡
ReplyDeleteReally shameful.
May GOD Comfort all the love ones of George Flyod.
May GOD Heal their land.
It’s been traumatic to say the least.
ReplyDeleteThe year of unprecedented happenings.
The racial motivations reminds me of the film PURGE, where it’s okay to kill and commit illegal activity for 24 hours without being charged. Though, it’s a film but it now stems to reality.
I have seen numerous videos of police brutality that sickens me and hurts so bad... I cry silently because the person tortured is human, I am human, someone’s child, family, son, daughter. They are not animals.
Reality hits me to the core... you worry for your children, what is the world coming too!
Excellent write up Olatunde as usual. This is just a challenging time for us all.
Dear Ola, well captured. Race inequality will persist, I’m afraid. It is unfortunate but it has become so systemic that even as they go into the ‘minority’ in population terms in a few decades (given the high birth rates in the Black and Hispanic communities), we will have more of this stringent purveyors of this evil (read DJT!)
ReplyDelete