Trevor shares his thoughts on the killing of George Floyd*1, the protests in Minneapolis, the dominos of racial injustice and police brutality, and how the contract between society and black Americans has been broken time and time again.
You know what’s really interesting about what’s happening in America right now is that a lot of people don’t seem to realize how dominos connect, how one piece knocks another piece that nocks another piece that nocks another piece and in the end creates a giant wave.
Each story seems completely unrelated and yet at the same time, I feel like everything that happens in the world connects to something else in some way, shape, or form. And I think this news, this news cycle that we whitnessed in the last week was a perfect example of that. Amy Cooper*2, George Floyd and, you know, the people of Minneapolis.
Amy cooper was for many people, I think, the catalyst, and by the way I should mention that all of this is like against the backdrop of coronavirus, you know? People stuck in their house for one of the longest periods we can remember, people loosing more jobs than every...anyone can ever remember. People struggling to make do more than they can remember. I think all of that compounded by the fact that there seems to be no genuine plan from leadership. Like, no one knows what’s gonna happen. You know, no one knows how long they’re supposed to be good, how long they are supposed to stay inside, how long they supposed to flatten the curve. No one knows any of these things.
And so what happens is you have a group of people who are stuck inside, all of us, our society, we're stuck inside. And then we start to consume, we see what’s happening in the world and I think, Amy Cooper was one of the first moments that, you know, one of the first dominos that… that we saw get knocked down post-corona for many people. And that was a world where you quickly realized that, while every one is facing the battle against coronavirus, black people in America are still facing the battle against racism and coronavirus.
And the reason I say it’s a domino is because, think about how many black Americans just have read and seen the news of how black people are disproportionately affected by coronavirus, and not because of something inherently inside black people, but rather because of the lives black people have lived in America for so long. You know, coronavirus exposed all of it.
And now here you have this woman who, we’ve all seen the video now. Blatantly, blatantly knew how to use the power of her whiteness to threaten the life of another man and his blackness. What we saw with her was a really, really powerful, explicit example of an understanding of racism in a structural way. When she looked at that man, when she looked at Cooper and she said to him “I’m gonna call 911 and I’m gonna tell them there is an African American man threatening my life.” She knew how powerful that was.
And that in itself is telling, you know? It tells you how she perceives the police. It tells you how she perceives her perception or her relationship with the police as a white woman. It shows you how she perceives a blackman’s relationship with the police and the police’s relationship with him. It was, it was really, it was, it was powerful.
Because so many people act like they don’t know what black Americans talking about and yet Amy Cooper had a distinct understanding. She was like “Oh, I know. I know that you are afraid of interacting with the police because there is a presumption of your guilt because of your blackness. I know that as a white woman and I can weaponized this tool against you, and I know that by the time things shifted trough who was right or wrong, there is a good chance that you will have lost in some way, shape, or form.”
And so, for me, that was the first domino. And so now you are living in a world where so many people are watching this video, so many people are being triggered, because in many ways it was like a, it was like a gotcha. You know? It was like a, it was like the curtain had been pulled back, aha, so you do this. Because it has always been spoken about, but it was like, it was powerful to see it being used. And I think a lot of people were triggered by that, a lot of people were like, “Damn. We knew it was real, but this is like real, real.” You know?
I think a lot of people were so angry that some of the outrage that came to her was because of her dog. And I mean, I get it, you know? But it was, it was, a lot of people felt like it would have been great if the dog shelters had the same, I guess, power or if police departments were run by the people who run dog shelters because they seem to act like this, they didn’t waste time. They were like, “Nope, we would like our dog back, lady.” Which I’m gonna be honest, I think was, that was a hell of a punishment. Her job is one thing, taking a white lady’s dog. That was a nice dog.
Yeah, so that was the first domino, you know? That was the first domino where I felt like you could feel something stirring. And all of this again is in the backdrop. It’s cotonavirus has happened. The numbers have come out. You know, the story of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia*3, that story has come up, all of these things are happening.
And then the video of George Floyd comes out, and I don’t know what made that video more painful for people to watch, the fact that that man was having his life taken in front of our eyes, the fact that we were watching someone being murdered by someone whose job is to protect and serve, or the fact that he seemed so calm doing it, you know? Oftentimes we are always told that the police feared their lives, it was like a threatened, and you know what. You always feel like an asshole when you are like “you didn’t fear for your life?” “How, why did you fear for your life? How did you fear.”
But now more and more we are starting to see that it’s like no, it doesn’t seem like there’s a fear, it just seems like it’s, you can do it so you did it. There was a black man on the ground in handcuffs and you, you could take his life, so you did. Almost knowing that there would be no ramifications. And then again, everyone on the internet has to watch this, everyone sees it, it floods our timeline as people.
And…and I think, one ray of sunshine for me in that moment was seeing how many people instantly condemned what they saw. You know? And maybe it’s because I'm an opitimistic person, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that. Especially not in America. I have not seen a police video come out and just see across the board, I mean even Fox News commentators and police chef around the country immediately condemning what they saw. No questions, not what was he doing, not just going, no, this, what happened here was wrong. It was wrong. This person got murdered on camera.
And then the police were fired, great. But I think what people take for granted is, is how much, for so many people that feels like nothing, you know? How many of us as human beings can take the life of another human being and then have firing be the worst thing that happens to us?
And yes, we don’t know where the case will go, don’t get me wrong, but it just, it’s, it feels like there is no moment of justice, there is no, you know, if you watching a movie, you at least want the cops, you’d wanna see the perpetrators in handcuffs. You’d wanna see the perpetrators facing some sort of justice. Yes, they might come out on bail, et cetera, but I think there’s a lot of catharsis that comes with seeing that justice being doled out.
When the riots happened, they for me was an interesting culmination of everything. I saw so many people online saying, “These riots are disgusting” "This is not how a society should be run.” “You do not loot and you do not burn and you do not, this is not how our society is built.”
And that actually triggered something in me where I was like “man, okay. Society, but what is society?” And fundamentally, when you boil it down, society is a contract. It's a contract that we sign as a human beings amongst each other. We sign the contract as people each other whether it’s spoken or unspoken and we say, “Amongst this group of us, we agree in common rules, common ideals and common practices that are going to define us as a group.” That’s what I think a society is, it’s a contract. And as with most contracts, the contract is only as strong as the people who are abiding by it.