Eight minutes, forty-six seconds.
That is how long a police officer kept his knee on George Floyd’s neck. A murder committed on an unarmed black man, in broad daylight, by law enforcement.
Today, we are silent for 8 minutes, 46 seconds - to honor and remember George Floyd, and the many others who have died, as the United States confronts the injustices of police brutality, systematic racism, and white supremacy.
The United States wrote in its founding document that “all men are created equal”, and it has not lived up to that promise. America can no longer hide from its past. But the promise is not in vain, because the promise does not come from the past.
The promise of America comes from the striving of its people. It has always been the people. Our history is the history of people who wouldn’t accept things as they were. We are a nation unwilling to let things be. We are a nation of protesters. We are a nation who does not give up on our people.
There is a saying on the Great Seal, a saying even older than the Declaration.
E pluribus unum. “Out of many, one.”
The forgotten promise of so many, for so long, must become the promise of one.
One nation, one people.
Let us all do the work.
Links:
Sign this petition calling for the end of police violence against Black people.
https://act.colorofchange.org/signup/state-emergency-black-people-are-dying
Help support bail for protestors in your community.
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/bail_funds_george_floyd
A look at data and research-informed policy solutions communities can put in place to end police violence.
https://www.joincampaignzero.org/#campaign
Media Resources:
13th (NETFLIX)
American Son (NETFLIX)
Dear White People (NETFLIX)
If Beale Street Could Talk (HULU)
King in the Wilderness (HBO)
See You Yesterday (NETFLIX)
The Hate U Give (CINEMAX)
When They See Us (NETFLIX)
1619 (NEW YORK TIMES)
About Race
Code Switch (NPR)
Intersectionality Matters!
Pod Save The People
Pod for the Cause
Seeing White
So You Want To Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
Stamped From The Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi
Evicted by Matthew Desmond
Nobody by Marc Lamont Hill
Blackballed by Darryl Pinckney
The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
