When talking with my anonymous contact who is now living in Minneapolis who we will call ‘James’, there are certain features that need to be brought to light. If you are unaware, that city, Minneapolis, is going through a time only described as partly chaotic, partly just, partly uncertain, partly hopeful, scary, violent, but most assuredly wholly inevitable.

Inevitable in the fact that crimes against black males by police and to an extent white civilians, have become so commonplace, that we treat this type of news with the same severity that we treat school shootings — with almost none. Further, on these two issues, there is no sense of justice ever being faintly felt by the public at large.

The riots in Minneapolis almost make us forget about Ahmaud Arbery who was shot in a situation that is ultimately described as two white men, who were not police officers, deciding that they would take the law into their own hands, with zero, zero, zero recourse to do so — a murder. The court system will go through that process to further find what will happen in the case of a young black man killed by civilian whites.

In the case of George Floyd, who died after the course of nine minutes (1) wherein a police officer forcefully placed his knee on the neck and throat of Mr. Floyd, Minneapolis has erupted calling for the cuffing, arrest, and trial of the officers involved. Mainly centered on the police officer responsible for the death.

That main police officer was being sought after by the aggregate community of demonstrators in the city. And as my source told me ‘there is a ring of policemen around the officers house’. This was before the arrest happened. It finally did.

If this is true, one has to ask how much of a problem the police force is in general in the city of Minneapolis and to a larger extent every inhabited sphere in the USA.

Typically, when a person kills a person in an unjust way, and there are people there who see it happening and are a part of the group of the person killing the other, then there is a simple set of rules that the law follows and justice goes about its way. This is not what seemed to happen in the course of four days — nor for most black men.

What I am being told from James are several things, but as that person puts it, the most important feature is that areas of the city are cleaned up by public civilians. Seen in this photo:

Yesterday, the police officer in charge had been put into custody for murder (in what degree I am uncertain), however people are still working for the other three officers who were complacent in the murder to be cuffed. James saying that the demonstrators were happy about how fast the arrest happened.

If not considered fast enough by some, we consider then how slow arrests of killer-cops happen. Often, it is not fast enough, not even an occurrence that a cop who kills indiscriminately gets treated fairly.

Surely, in the problematic world of violence against black men, minorities, or any people tied to systematic injustice, the idea that it takes days as well as massive amounts of demonstration to hold a person of the law responsible is clearly too much time.

For those interested in the looting and arson, we see another, more sinister side, that is not community led, but comes again as an act of aggression and instigation by the police force, you need to see more and determine for yourself. This problem of that privilege that law enforcers and police have over the community is surely clear when we look at the next image:

This confirms actions taken by the police similar to what James has told me. As well, there are/were also these instances in the city.

Police helped to start the riots/fires/looting, internally acting as public members.
Originally public civilians acted peacefully.
Kids and elders were also part of government instituted violence via tear gas.

What this all directs to is, of course, a sense of heightened superiority that institutions of governance have over the public civilian. For sure, there is a vast inequality towards black men when it comes to violence at police hands.

Over the years we with tragedies like this see several groups of people emerge from news like this: 1) the person who does not know what to do, but cares; 2) the person who becomes outraged; 3) the person takes on their civilian and communitarian responsibility, regardless; 4) the person who does not care; 5) the agreeable population person, but does not show care; 6) the person who upholds what has happened; and 7) the person who upholds what has happened and fights for it. There may be and probably are many more iterations of reaction.

It is this sixth person which are scary, like the Mississippi mayor when he ‘didn’t see anything unreasonable’ in the case (2). The fifth person, is ambiguous, for example, Mitch McConnell has said officers ‘look pretty darn guilty’ (3). With the mayor, we can say that this is inherently true. There was absolutely nothing reasonable about the killing of George Floyd.

Usually, the reactions of the fourth and fifth kind are ambiguous for us to understand. The fourth person, being ambivalent or apathetic, comes across as someone who does not want, or does not want, to deal with the issues. This reaction can come from many things in their personal life. The fifth person, who agrees with common consensus, but does not show care or interest can also fall under the problem of apathetic, or more sinister views — that being using their leverage to agree for future benefit.

The third kind is the most honorable. The people who without hesitation go into the mass of people, perhaps the chaos and violence, and administer what help they can to those in need.

The second kind, which can also be honorable, can also be problematic, in the sense that they influence, by their actions, a reaction that is not beneficial for either parties included. This difference of the people who become outraged is difficult to understand. Typically, on the one hand, we see people who are outraged have been known to lead to good things, historically understood. As well, people who are outraged can also lead to bad things, historically understood.

The first kind, those who care, but do not know what to do we can look at as pupils. This is when responsibility, civic duty, and education become important in how a population orients itself towards a better situation.

The seventh kind, which is one of the most confusing to recognize, at times, is one of the most dangerous. This is because it has some form of power and energy that allows it to see injustice and find this manner of being effective for its own goals.

The typology of people which I have written about has been actively thought of during the process of my writing. I am sure there are better sources to understand how a person reacts to injustice, but for the time being, this is what I have.

However, what mainly needs to be iterated at this moment is perhaps a point of view of James of optimism and connection to his community. James, over and over again speaks about the strength and determination of the people he is fighting with and for. As James put it, in simple terms, Eastern Minneapolis and the Afro-American community there have been through this before and it is their fight.

In some small conclusion, and to a mind that is not there, but a heart that is, I figure that what is happening in Minneapolis should not be taken, politically, as a ‘this vs. that’ - what it should be taken as is a man, along with a group of men allowed for the killing of another man. There is nothing political about a human being wrongfully killed. In any form of government that is just, killing another unjustly is wrong. In any government where people of a certain race, color, creed, belief, etc. are killed unjustly at higher rates than their civilian peers one has to ask what type, if any type, of government is in place.

Further conclusion

What it should be taken as is a ‘us vs. them’ issue. That a man of a certain color, economic status, has been killed. Further, those who are usually doing the killing are people that cannot be immediately identified as criminals. This is what makes it so scary. The policemen over there might kill me and get away with it. This is the fear that exists from the actions of the modern police state.

In the history of the US we typically teach our students about two time periods in African-American history: slavery and civil rights. What is left out are the period after the Civil War wherein the African-American community started to impede on white business, which lead to Jim Crow Laws, the bombing in Tulsa (4), the bombing of the MOVE movement (5), etc. The idea is: pick a year, and a month, pick a week, and pick a day — if you are not black, most likely your day, month, week, year, was better than any black person living next to you — reminiscent of John Rawls’s thought experiment of ‘the veil of ignorance’. Even worse than this probable fact is: there are people who actively support this state of racism and classism.

To further explain what is meant by an ‘us vs. them’ issue is that there are those of us on the side of justice and liberty for all and there are some who are not. Usually, those who are not are concerned when seeing rights of others as being something impeding on their own rights. The simple logic follows: if you as person ‘x’ has rights, then person ‘y’ gets rights as well, then both person ‘x’ and person ‘y’ have rights. The only time person ‘x’ is concerned with whether person ‘y’ gets the same rights is when person ‘x’ used person ‘y’ for the material accumulation that came with their rights. That material accumulation is sometimes in the simplest sense of being able to choose your romantic partner, where you decide to go, who you get to talk to, what you get to drink, what you get to ear, what you get to buy, etc.

In a sense, when rights are given to people who did not have them before the people who are against it see it as a problem with their material value. Which means, two things: 1) the person against the equal rights, or better — just rights, of others cannot see themself as being able to have a life wherein people are all treated the same. In this sense, these people are ultimately impotent, they have no power in themselves, they are weak, cowardly, succident. But 2) the ultimate concern comes down to material value that is valued to be lost when a working or slave class becomes equal.

This ‘us vs. them’ then is not inherently racist. Although in the United States of America it certainly seems and proves to be that way.

When we see this ambivalence towards injustice we can say two things: 1) it is meditated upon; or 2) it is not understood. For those that do not understand, teach them. For those where it is an ethical foundation that has been thought about we ask several questions: what about humans being equals scares you? Why does that fear incite you to violence? — an scary thing itself?; Do you ever think about different people?; Again, what scares you about everyone?

Footnotes

(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZufLdykWKU

(2) https://www.foxnews.com/us/mississippi-mayor-refuses-to-resign-says-he-didnt-see-anything-unreasonable-with-george-floyds-death

(3) https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/29/mitch-mcconnell-police-officers-guilty-george-floyd-288915

(4) https://www.history.com/topics/roaring-twenties/tulsa-race-massacre

(5) https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2015/05/18/407665820/why-did-we-forget-the-move-bombing