Dear Donald
Yesterday you spoke to governors across the country and told them to “dominate” the violent protestors.
Later, you addressed the country and shared your plans for domination.
You spoke about your support for peaceful protesters even as officers were using rubber bullets, tear gas and flash bangs on peaceful protestors to clear the way for you to walk to the St. Johns Episcopal church.
While you were at the church you posed for pictures holding a bible in your hand and then posed for more pictures with your privileged staff. This had nothing to do with support for the cause. This had nothing to do with unifying the country. This had nothing to do with giving George Floyd’s family any measure of your commitment to make sure no one else suffered like he did at the hands of police.
This was you punching back at everyone who accused you of hiding in a bunker doing nothing while the country burned. You couldn’t help yourself. You had to make this about you. Way to go, you showed them. You are a beast, Donald. You walked out the front door of the White House and marched to that church with your chest puffed up and your head held high. You held up that Bible and proclaimed that America is the greatest country in the world, symbolically suggesting that it’s because of you and your band of white, privileged super leaders. Privileged super leaders who are more likely to empathize and side with Amy Cooper and Derek Chauvin more than they can empathize with George Floyd and other black men like him.
American citizens were exercising their right to protest peacefully and you called the cops on them so you could walk your law & order dogs off leash to the photo op! As planned, this PR stunt was perceived by those who support you as brave and courageous and patriotic. Your supporters concern me. Doesn’t it concern you that you could shoot and kill someone on 5th Avenue and not lose the support of many of your “fans”?
It is the same grip of support that police have enjoyed for decades. These people who will support you no matter what, are the same people who support white police officers who kill black people or poor people with impunity. How does it feel to have that kind of support? That kind of influence? That kind of power over people? I’ll bet it’s intoxicating.
Yes, intoxicating! Is it possible that you are drunk with power? Leading under the influence?
If so, it is reckless, selfish, irresponsible and it will not end well.
You do know that the atrocities that took place inside of Nazi controlled extermination camps were reported to those on the outside but many Americans just couldn’t or wouldn’t believe it until they saw it.
Here in America, “the greatest country in the world”, there have been murders of black men and boys by the police and people just couldn’t or wouldn’t believe the atrocity of it even after they saw it over and over again on videos that went viral. They believed it must have been justified because the victims were black and they must have done something wrong that was not captured in the video.
The problem is that you and people like you have benefitted greatly by placing your knee on the neck of black people in America. It is hard to relinquish the spoils that come with that domination because you gain by it and your kids and their kids benefit too. Even when laws are created that appear to respect justice for all (voting rights act), you find ways around it (gerrymandering & voter ID laws).
Because of the attention generated by people like Colin Kaepernick* and movements like Black Lives Matter, the needle of America's moral compass has nudged just a bit toward compassion over the years. Even though police brutality has been going on for decades and has recently been chronicled via viral videos without much resulting action, with deaths of so many black folks due to COVID-19 and the recent senseless murders of black folks at the hands of police and former police, swifter action than ever before was taken in George Floyd's case. I think Americans recognized that black people are getting the short end of the stick in so many different ways and seeing this black man die right before their very eyes was more than even your "racist of the year" Medal Of Freedom recipient could ignore.
I am hopeful that the momentum generated by this outpouring of concern from Americans of all stripes will lead to real change.
America's soul-sucking oppression of black folks did not start with your (p)residency and if only you didn’t benefit so much from it maybe you could rise to the occasion to end the war on black people that started centuries ago. Recognizing that black lives really do matter and creating policies that support it is one way you could make America great. Unfortunately, you would lose the support of millions of die-hard fans if you did that and attention whores like you would rather die than not be worshipped.
Yep, I'm still angry!
By the way, please note that according to the Johns Hopkins COVID 19 Map* as of June 2, 2020 at 10:33pm EST, under your leadership, there are 106,181 Americans killed by Covid-19 and 1,831,821 CONFIRMED cases.
(copyright 2020 Johns Hopkins University, all rights reserved)
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