People can ask some really dumb questions. One of those questions is what made Minneapolis different from any other assault on black peoples existence in America. The answer is simple, the jar holding the fear and group anxiety of black people reached the point of over flow.
Eight minutes and 46 seconds of watching a man die in slow agonizing motion captured in precise digital format was enough. People were tired of being told that all they had to do was play nice and next time things would be different. In 400 years things haven’t gotten different and people were still waiting. After the Civil War people were told that things were going to be better they just had to be patient.
After the red summer of 1919 people were told that things were going to be better they just needed to be patient. After Tulsa in 1921 where an entire community was wiped out people were told they just needed to be patient.
In 1925 in Detroit Dr. Ossian Sweet was put on trial for having the audacity of buying a home and protecting it from white marauders. In 1943 after the Detroit race riots people were told that they needed to be patient things would be better.
Brown v. Board of education promised that black children would finally get the education that their white counterparts received. People just needed to be patient.
Then came the signs that peoples patience was wearing thin. First there was Watts, then Detroit, then Chicago and the promises continued to ring hollow. Empty promises.
In 2016 #BunkerbitchakaDJT asked black people what did they have to lose. The eight minutes and 46 minutes that it took for the life to drain out of George Floyd’s body demonstrated that enough is enough. People don’t have any more patience. The patience as been exhausted by promises unkept.
People have taken to the streets because they don’t want anymore empty promises. The summer of 2020 will go down in history because the social unrest won’t be put back into the bottle. We are still over a week away from the beginning of summer. On Friday night another black man was summarily executed in the streets of Atlanta. America has sowed the seeds, now she is reaping the whirlwind. Minneapolis was the spark the fire will not be extinguished.
THINK!!
EYES WIDE OPEN!!!