Five years ago today...

That's right...it happened.

46-year-old Houston-born George Floyd was murdered in his adopting city, Minneapolis, by police officer Derek Chauvin.

Floyd was a father of five...and he entered a convenience store to buy some cigarettes. A clerk at that store suspected Floyd had used a $20 bill to purchase the smokes, so the store's manager called the police. When MPD officers arrived at the store, they pulled guns on Floyd...who cooperated with the cops during the arrest. But then, he told the officers he had claustrophobia...so he resisted going into the squad car. Once they pulled Floyd out, Chauvin pinned him to the ground.

The whole thing was caught on video...and the footage made it to Facebook.

After nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds underneath Chauvin, Floyd was unresponsive. He was pronounced dead at a Minneapolis hospital.

Protests took place almost immediately...and Minneapolis was the first city where demonstrations took place in the wake of the murder. In the next week or two, two hundred US cities had imposed curfews. Roughly twenty-five states used the National Guard...on top of police departments nationwide using riot-control tactics.

Things got to the point here in America where more than 2,000 protests happened in the wake of the murder of Floyd...in a year where Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor had already lost their lives to police brutality.

Bigwigs in all walks of American life started talking about the role of police departments...and started talking about how to end racism (let's face it, this country's original sin...and I'm quoting bestselling author Jim Wallis) and how to make these United States a truly inclusive nation.

I can't help but ask: How much have we actually learned as a nation since 5-25-2020?

For starters, the same man who, in the light of these protests, wanted the police to "dominate the streets" is back in office.

Speaking of police...Chauvin was arrested on 5-29-2020; he was charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter. A jury found him guilty of all those charges on 4-20-2021. (Those seventeen misconduct complaints Chauvin racked up coming into 2020's Memorial Day weekend sure didn't help him.)

He's now serving a 22.5-year prison sentence...whether the Charlie Kirks of the world like it or not.

The protests MUST continue

Last week, two encounters with coworkers at the plastics factory that employs me made it personally crystal clear why the worldwide protests against the brutality shown by America's police forces MUST continue.

Last Sunday, Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert issued a 72-hour curfew in light of the Big O being one of the many American cities holding demonstrations not only against police brutality, but also against the militarization of this country's police forces...and against vigilante brutality. In the curfew, people couldn't go out between 8:00 PM and 6:00 AM...unless they had vital jobs. (The company I work at makes, among other things, personal protective equipment...no, not coronavirus masks, but the masks worn by assembly-line employees at dairy factories and by soldiers.)

So...on 6-1-2020, as I got off my second-shift job at 11:00 PM and was heading for my car to drive home, a supervisor from another plant within the same building headed for his own car to go to his own home.

I held the door for him (just trying to be polite, that's all)...and he started talking about the local curfew.

And then he praised this country's chief White House occupant, talking about how "honest" this occupant is...and how this one-time reality-TV show host "says what's on his mind."

Guess what? 

Just because the former host of NBC's The Apprentice says what's on his mind doesn't make what's on his mind cool...especially when he declares war on the nation's own citizens by vowing to sic the military on protesters if governors don't do his bidding and "dominate the streets."

That's dictatorial talk...no ifs, no maybes, no buts.

Sorry, folks. The way I see it, we started having a dictator here the afternoon of 1-20-2017.

A couple of nights ago, a fellow second-shift employee of mine at the same plant I work at weighed in on the continuing protests.

She wondered when the demonstrators would get off the streets "so that people can get on with their lives." What's more, she wondered what good the protests are doing.

So I told her.

Not only did I tell this fellow machine operator that the demonstrations have, at long last, gotten the attention of some corporate leaders (one of the leaders took to the electronic billboard at 72nd and Pacific Sts. here in O and loaded a message: "We Need Each Other")...I told her I'm glad the protests continue to take place.

The sign on the east facade of Omaha's Do Space (at 72nd and Dodge Sts., in a building that previously housed a Borders book store) proclaimed: "BLACK LIVES MATTER."

By the way...some of the protests here in Omaha happened at 72nd and Dodge.

Hours before second shift began that day (6-5-2020), NFL commissioner Roger Goodell released a statement admitting that the league was wrong in the way it's been handling player protest ever since San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick went to one knee in 2016.

Eleven days after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis cop named Derek Chauvin (with an assist from four other members of Minneapolis' Supposedly Finest), Goodell finally gave the okay for the NFL's players to speak out and peacefully protest.

What's more, he stated: "We, the National Football League, believe Black lives matter. I personally protest with you and want to be part of the much-needed change in this country."

Goodell also admitted that "Without Black players, there would be no National Football League." 

Now, Roger...if you and the league's 32 team owners get rid of that kneeling ban, I'll be glad to get back to spending Sunday afternoons and evenings (and any Monday night or Thursday night I can get off during the season) watching NFL action.

And what about US Sen. Willard Mitt Romney (R-UT), the most recent Republican to lose a presidential election, marching with protesters in the nation's capital?

We'll see what happens in the days/weeks/months/years to come...but Romney's and Goodell's actions are a start. So are those taken by corporate bigwigs everywhere.

So if you're still upset because the protests, as this fellow machine operator of mine put it, prevent people from going "on with their lives," let me tell you something:

Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Michael Brown, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, 12-year-old Tamir Rice, and too damned many others weren't allowed to get on with their own lives.

Vigilantes took it upon themselves to snuff Martin's and Arbery's lives out.

FOR NOTHING.

And I'd like to ask you something:

Do you REALLY believe in freedom for all to live their lives peacefully...to go about their everyday business just as you do?

Do you REALLY believe people have a right to petition this country's government...especially this current garbage fire of a government, one built on hatred and bigotry?