As of yesterday Columbus, Ohio has been in a state of emergency. The city is under a 10 pm curfew and our governor has called out the National Guard to restore order to the turbulent downtown streets.
The protests have been going on here for the past four days and nights.
...in solidarity with protesters across the United States over the brutal murder of George Floyd,
...by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin,
The protesters have been hit by the police with tear gas, pepper spray, and rubber bullets,
...scattering them, but only temporarily.
By yesterday morning, Saturday, hundreds of downtown window fronts had been shattered,
...including twenty-eight windows at the Ohio Statehouse.
Certainly the destruction wreaked on the businesses presents a moral dilemma.
But, as articulated by the shouts and signs of the protesters,
...injustice does not beget peace when the grief, anger and frustration wrought by a system of law enforcement rotten with injustice finally boils over.
For decades upon decades voices have been crying out out against police brutality and the systemic injustice perpetrated against black and brown people.
And yet we still live in a country where a black teenager innocently walking down the street can be shot with impunity by a white man;
And yet we still live in a country where a black teenager innocently walking down the street can be shot with impunity by a white man;
| Trayvon Martin |  |
...where a black woman, an EMT, can be shot to death by white police officers in an erroneous drug raid while sleeping in her own home;
 | Breonna Taylor |
...where a young black man can be murdered while jogging by three white men who weren't even charged until a video released three months later forced the hand of the local police;
| Ahmaud Arbery |  |
...and where a white woman strolling through Central Park knows she has the power to threaten the life of a bird-watching black man by calling the police with a false accusation that he was threatening her life after he had audacity to tell her leash her out-of -control dog.
 | Amy Cooper |
| Christian Cooper, no relation to the above, |  |
The unjust deaths and abuse of people of color at the hands of police officers and privileged white citizens are legion. But the sadistic public torture and murder of George Floyd was a death too far.
His voice crying out for his mother before he died was ignored by his killers.
Maybe now his voice and the voices of all people of color who've cried out for their lives and wept for the lives of those they cherish will finally be heard in the shattered glass.
His voice crying out for his mother before he died was ignored by his killers.
Maybe now his voice and the voices of all people of color who've cried out for their lives and wept for the lives of those they cherish will finally be heard in the shattered glass.
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