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?

 

Carjacked!

At 11:35 PM on Wednesday, 4-19-2017, I parked my car on 49th Street between Hamilton and Caldwell Streets, next door to the apartment building I live in. (No space was available in the building's parking lot.)

Before I could shut the ignition off, a man in his twenties or thirties approached me. I went ahead and rolled my car's left front window down.

First thing he asked me: "Do you have a cigarette?"

"No," I told him. "I don't smoke."

"Do you have a cell phone that works?" he asked me.

"No, I don't," I answered.

This same man then pulled a gray semiautomatic handgun, pointed the gun at me, and asked me for my car keys. After I turned the ignition off and relinquished the keys, he instructed me to "Run down the street. I won't try to hurt you." 

He pointed toward Caldwell Street, and I ran down Caldwell...for a few seconds. 

I then turned around and saw him speed up 49th Street before he made a right turn to Hamilton.

After that, I jogged (and eventually walked quickly) toward home. 

At 11:45 PM, I called the Omaha Police and reported the theft. About a half hour later, two officers and, later, a detective stopped to interview me about the carjacking.

This incident DOES have a happy ending:

At 1:57 AM that Thursday morning, the police phoned me to let me know that my vehicle was found...in a parking lot at the 3000 block of South 104th Plaza.  

Two more OPD officers stopped by outside the apartment building I live in to deliver my car...and I was able to drive it again at 2:56 AM that Thursday morning.

The car was left intact.

In fact, the thief not only left $2.14 in change in my 2006 car...he also left a Black & Mild cigar band inside the car (as well as the cigar's wrapper).  

I LUCKED OUT!!

Even so, the second-guessing already has begun: A loved one told me that "I would've just rolled the window back up and driven off."

With my luck, I would've been shot and killed for rolling the window back up. 

This is why I've felt reluctant all these years to tell loved ones about personal troubles. When I make a move to try and change all that, this is what I get: "I would've just rolled the window back up and driven off."

Things just AREN'T that simple! 

This morning, a reporter from one of the local TV stations interviewed me about the incident as part of that station's report tonight about local carjackings.

I originally intended to tune in...but because of tonight's second-guessing by this loved one, I won't watch tonight. 

I mean, it's not enough that the last 94 hours have been ruined because of this carjacking.

It doesn't matter to that second-guesser that I'm safe and that I got my car back. 

Here's my question for the second-guessers out there:

"With all that I've been going through these last sixteen months, how would you feel if this carjacker had gone on and shot and killed me?

"Who would you turn to next to dump on? HUH?" 

Is This What You Want, America?

Funny...I remember being told that the United States entered World War 2, sent troops to Korea, and put soldiers in Vietnam- to say nothing of deploying fighting men and fighting women in Iraq and Afghanistan- to stop totalitarianism.

I didn't think totalitarianism (in one degree or another) would get a foothold, let alone thrive in too many places, on these shores.

It's been 22 days now since 18-year-old high-school graduate Michael Brown was shot and killed in his home town of Ferguson, MO, by one of that city's police officers, Darren Wilson.

Several nights of tense protests ensued after Wilson and his fellow Ferguson Police officers gave conflicting reports about the events that led to Brown's killing; the protests came about, too, because of mounting frustration over the lack of detailed information made available to the general public about just what took place to cause Wilson to fire those six bullets.

Within a couple of days of the death of Brown, armored trucks and other military hardware were seen in the streets of Ferguson.

Not Kiev, Ukraine. Ferguson, MO, USA. 

To top it all off, that same police department fired tear gas (8-13-2014) at an Al Jazeera America TV crew to prevent that crew from taping coverage of the protests taking place in this St. Louis suburb. 

And two other reporters- The Huffington Post's Ryan Reilly and The Washington Post's Wesley Lowery- were detained by another FPD officer at a local McDonald's the very night the Al Jazeera America crew faced tear gas. 

It didn't make one bit of difference that Lowery, Reilly, and the crew from Al Jazeera America were just doing their jobs. 

Things would've been much worse if Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon hadn't called on Capt. Ron Johnson of the Missouri State Patrol to take over the policing of Ferguson from the St. Louis County forces and the Ferguson Police. (Johnson- a man from the St. Louis area- even walked with the protesters the night he took over.)

Yes, at the core of it all was the robbery of a convenience store in Ferguson. And yes, the FPD named Brown as a suspect. 

It's also true that Brown was unarmed and had no criminal record coming into 8-9-2014...and that the initial contact between the 28-year-old Wilson (a six-year FPD veteran) and the 18-year-old Brown had nothing to do with the robbery...a theft that took place ten minutes before the killing.  

Wasn't it enough for Darren Wilson to just take Michael Brown to the police station?

Since when did being suspected of robbery warrant death to the suspect...an unarmed suspect at that?   

I mean, James Holmes got treated better by police. 

Me, I don't know about how the same Aurora, CO police responsible for catching Holmes would've treated the Ferguson protesters.

But I do know I've read where, in the past, Ferguson's Finest (?) have harassed school children...including one who was just going to the mailbox of the child's own home. 

And if you're walking down one of Ferguson's thoroughfares, even if it's the one you live on, chances are one of Ferguson's Finest (?) will stop you...just for the hell of it.

I've been thinking that that city of 21,135 (2012 estimate) doesn't have a police department.

It's got a Gestapo.  

And this country's got too many cities where, depending on what you look like, you'd just better not be caught walking down this or that street- even if it's the street where you live and you're trying to get home.  

I recently read online about a man from St. Paul, MN, who was waiting at a shelter over by the First National Bank Building there. He was waiting on his children...but that didn't stop a bank employee from calling the police on him and getting him arrested. (Supposedly, it was his dreadlocks...and, oh, yes, his skin color.)  

If you're an American and you happen to stumble onto this post, you might want to ask yourself if the city you live in, if it isn't Ferguson itself, is a Ferguson-to-be...or has already had a Fergusonlike incident in recent years.

There's just no reason for a SWAT team to invade a rather peaceful protest. And there's no excuse for a police officer to let his dog desecrate that makeshift memorial (flowers and candles) at the spot where Brown died- the spot where Brown lay for four hours without medical attention.

48 of Ferguson's 53 officers are White...in a city where two out of every three residents are Black.

Are you adding this all up? 

Despite US Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) calling for an end to the militarization of America's police departments, many of Paul's fellow Republicans keep saying we shouldn't continue to shine the Big Light on Ferguson. They're also angry over efforts to get more Fergusonites to get out to their neighborhood polling places...especially on 11-4-2014.  

You know what, Republicans? That's YOUR tough luck!

If you're going to continue to talk glowingly and eloquently about freedom, then you've got absolutely no business calling for the transformation of "the country whose very name means freedom" into a police state.

I applaud those Fergusonites who now are calling for an end to their city's record as an Information-Age East Berlin.  

How about you? 

(By the way...sources for information for this post included Wikipedia and www.washingtonpost.com.)

Yep...I STILL Think about It

The recent George Zimmerman trial, along with a subsequent episode of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, got me to thinking about what I'd have to tell my biological children...that is, if I'd ever helped bring any biological children into this world. 

One of the reasons I've never been a biological father is this: I would've had to tell my sons and/or daughters that "Way too many of the people you meet just don't want to make you feel welcome here in this country you've been born in." 

In a way, those children would've been welcome here...but not REALLY welcome. 

I take a look at how so many Americans automatically assume that those of Trayvon Martin's color are the nation's archcriminals. Let's face it...let's not kid ourselves. If you're the color Trayvon was (my color), you're going to be more heavily scrutinized and held up to a harsher standard than if you're George Zimmerman's color.

You're going to be forced to constantly prove you're just as human as anybody else on the face of this planet called Earth. 

You learn that you're going to have to be twice as good at something as the average Caucasian person in your field...just to get half the acclaim.

It hurts. 

And you don't want to bring into the world in general, and right here in the world's most talked-about nation in particular, one more child who's going to end up on the wrong end of somebody else's racism...somebody else's sexism...somebody else's ageism...somebody else's homophobia/heterophobia...somebody else's paranoia about that child's religion...somebody else's axe to grind about that child not growing up wealthy.  

Some personal memories came welling up as a result of what happened in Sanford, FL.

One that came to mind happened on 9-1-2002, the day I went to Avoca, IA, to participate in that year's Old-Time Country and Bluegrass Festival and Contest. (That day- the seventh and final day of festivities at the Pottawattamie County Fairgrounds- they had the festival's ragtime piano competition. I didn't win...but I had a good, good time.)

That night, I went to the concession stand (underneath the grandstand) to buy something to eat...in this case, a hot dog and a can of pop (Mountain Dew).

The young woman running the concession stand looked at me as if I was one of the participants in the previous year's terrorist attacks.

She all but threw the hot dog (bun and all) and the pop can at me as I paid for the items. I felt so deflated that I had to tell her it was the fourth year I'd been to the festival...but all it got me was a snide version of "I hope you keep coming back."

I've NEVER set foot in Avoca since then.  

And I'm lucky the festival moved to Missouri Valley, IA the next year. (Now it's in another Iowa burg, LeMars.)  

I've also stopped shopping at the Hy-Vee food store at 51st and Center here in Omaha...because a late-night employee named Shirley spoiled it all for me. I'd been there many times before...but when Shirley asked me if she could help me (and she said this in a condescending way, as usual), that did it.  

Also on my mind was 11-1-2003...the day an Omaha Police officer named Richard Lucero (his first name does begin with "R;" I hope I've got his first name right) stopped me as I was on my way to my church's 5:00 PM service. 

While still in my car, I went to my wallet to pull out my driver's license...but he, assuming I had a gun (I've never owned a gun and don't own one now), told me to freeze or he'd shoot me. 

After he asked for my driver's license and received it to run a make on me, the officer told me my car (at the time, I owned a 1975 Lincoln Mark 4 that I bought at auction in 1999) had a broken taillight. 

He ordered me to fix the taillight (I did, with reflector tape)...and also wrote me a ticket (I paid it a week later). Then he snarled: "Have a nice day."

That day was totally ruined.  

From 1980 to 1987 (covering most of my first residency here in the Big O), I worked for Washington Inventory Service, the San Diego-based firm (since bought out by a rival company, RGIS) that had offices nationwide.

One of my fellow WIS employees was a man who liked to advertise his religion...heavily. And he liked to let everyone know he was a political conservative. I was one of his few friends.

Even so, I didn't feel good about his asking me: "Jim...what do you want to be called?"

I knew darn good and well he was wondering what I call my ethnic background. (And I didn't want to answer that way.)

So I just told him: "I just want to be called Jim. That's my name."

That's how I see myself: I'm a human being first, an American second, and an African American third.  

Another thing: The trial down in Florida got me to thinking about how President Barack Obama's been treated by this country's Republican lawmakers and by their cheerleaders...the people with the shows on this country's so-called news and information stations. 

I'm still burned up by Arizona Gov. Janet Brewer wagging her finger at Obama at Phoenix' Sky Harbor Airport. Utter disrespect from Brewer and so many of her fellow Republicans.

Sure, US Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who lost in 2008 to Obama (at that time a US senator from Illinois), praised him for his speech about the Zimmerman trial. According to McCain, maybe we can finally have That Talk (about ethnicity in America).

It's really not going to happen as long as US Reps. Michael Burgess and Louie Gohmert (both R-TX) keep getting in the way. Burgess has echoed Donald Trump by constantly questioning Obama's educational standing: "He didn't go to Harvard Law School!"

And all Gohmert has done these last four years is question the president's religion, claiming Obama to be a Muslim, not the Christian he really is.

The Republicans continue to "mourn" the alleged "death" of so-called traditional America. They refuse to accept how the country's face is changing, becoming more inclusive of people of ALL backgrounds.

One of those Republicans, US Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, has urged Martin's supporters to get over the recent verdict finding Zimmerman not guilty.

Tell you what, Mr. Harris: Why don't you and other Republicans get over the fact that America's face is changing?

Why don't you all get over the fact that we've now got a president named Barack Obama...and start learning to work together with him and other non-Republicans? 

Why don't you stop having all these phony investigations in the hope that you'll impeach Obama and start passing laws the people can actually use...like a jobs bill, for crying out loud?

Why don't you people start putting us rank-and-file citizens first...and not your party?

If you want the votes of this country's Black, Brown, Red, and Yellow people of both genders...as well as women of all colors...why don't you STOP dehumanizing and demonizing them?  

You folks ever do that, those of us who don't feel welcome here will start to feel better. 

And we'll finally get closer to the postracial environment so many pundits predicted would come out of Obama beating McCain in 2008.

Thanks for reading "Boston's Blog!"