IntentionallyAct Blog

When the news starts reporting things like Eric Gardner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile, Oscar Grant, Walter Scott, Stephon Clark, Samuel DeBose, Alton Sterling, Jamar Clark, Terrence Crutcher, Akai Gurley, Anthony Hill, Jeremy McDole, John Crawford, Trayvon Martin, Eric Harris, Tony Robinson, Jonathan Sanders, and Michael Brown. You see after all this history of violence none of these deaths are an isolated incident, but that’s what cops want to believe because they don’t have to know the history. All this violence is what is called systemic racism. And I was kind of hoping we got it, but there is a patriarchy at play and it likes it’s power. George Floyd died after 8:46 second of a police officer kneeling on his neck. Breonna Taylor was shot while she slept in her bed and Elijah McClain was choked out while walking home from the store. So BLACK LIVES MATTER took to the street. They protested. And cops wrote “no one hates bad cops more than good cops” on their social media, some took a knee and a few marched. Here’s the thing: it's your first Amendment right to protest to redress grievances against the government. So when all the people I just named had their fourth amendment right to unlawful search and seizure taken from them by the government (also known as murder), people used their first amendment rights to protest this. Unfortunately this constitutional right, in many cases, was met with rubber bullets and teargas. Thereby violating their First Amendment right to peaceful protest.

He explained Black Lives Matter versus the phrase All Lives Matter in a way I could understand. He said “Black Lives Matter” is trying to show us that there is something broken. He says it’s like you broke a bone in your body, so you go to the doctor and tell him/her about your arm and their response is that “all bones matter.” Black Lives Matter is pointing out that racism and inequality are alive and well in America. That there are systems in place that oppress some and benefit others. What I’ve discovered is that once you see systemic racism in society, it’s kind of hard to unsee. And it doesn’t feel good. You may feel guilty or helpless, like what can I do? It’s almost like the death of a life you once knew. You may at first deny, bargain, grieve, and be angry. Shamefully, but finally, with the death of George Floyd, many whites are willing to accept the reality that racism is real. We all watched it as a knee on a neck took the life of a man who deserves to live.

The strange fruit producing the pain and suffering of Black people in America has oppression at the roots giving life to the tree of racism. George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, COVID-19 deaths and suffering, and all the attempts to exploit, ignore, silence, and make us invisible...these are all different types of strange fruit from the same tree. The burden is heavy and every new incident is another weight that Black people are expected to bear civilly and quietly to keep everyone else comfortable.

John Monaghan, Director of Partnerships at All Aces, Inc., former Chief of Police, Moultonborough, NH, discusses White Privilege and the Development of the Adult Mind, as laid out by Robert Keegan in the context of John Pavlovitz' response to the killing of Ahmaud Arbery and the recent protest of Michigan Governor Whitmer's Stay at Home order, "The White Privilege to Terrorize. As this blog was being published, news about George Floyd, who died as a result of his treatment by Minneapolis PD was just emerging.