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How George Floyd became a martyr His death has spawned a cult — and for heretics there is no redemption

Credit: Stephanie Keith/Getty

Credit: Stephanie Keith/Getty


April 22, 2021   6 mins

“Thank you George Floyd for sacrificing your life for justice … Because of you and because of thousands, millions of people around the world who came out for justice, your name will always be synonymous with justice.” So spoke Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the conviction of Derek Chauvin, in one of the most telling reactions so far. George Floyd died for our sins, a martyr for the faith.

Every year American police kill about 40-50 unarmed civilians, of whom just under half are black, and while many have become well-known since the rise of Black Lives Matters in 2013, Floyd was the first to have become an icon. Murals were painted across the world and those who mocked him went on trial for blasphemy. His is one of the most recognisable faces of 2020.

The murder triggered a month of protests characterised not just by looting and violence but by strange and bizarre scenes such as the washing of black feet. As Niall Gooch put it at the time: “I am beginning to understand what it must have felt like to be alive in the Middle Ages when one of those hysterical outbreaks began and everyone in your village started quacking like a duck or refusing to wear clothes.”

At the same time, the trend among conservative and classical liberal commentators of comparing American progressivism to a religion accelerated. Certainly the influence of Christianity and, in particular, Calvinism has been well documented, by me included.

It is easy to compare social justice politics to religion because there are so many superficial similarities; it is also fun, because many of our opponents despise religion and prize rationalism. Yet it is also unfair to religious believers and the faiths that inspired them.

Right now, hundreds of millions of Muslims are fasting for the month of Ramadan, during which time they will raise huge amounts for charity — quietly, dutifully and without informing their Instagram followers. They do that because the Abrahamic faiths demand great self-sacrifice and selflessness.

In contrast, political ideology mostly offers only rewards — status, popularity and often jobs and money. While big corporations have been pressured to support social justice campaigns since last May, it’s questionable who will benefit the most; the campaigners certainly won’t be out of pocket.

Religions also inspire great art, while the Great Awokening won’t leave us with a Last Supper, Chartres Cathedral or Shrine of Fatimah Masumeh. We have some murals, yes, but there is nothing transcendental, nothing for future generations to marvel at and to cherish. Most significantly, though, there is no possibility of redemption or forgiveness with today’s political religion. What is often referred to as “cancel culture” is the absence of forgiveness in public life, even for things people said in their youth.

At the height of the Great Awokening last year, 14 of the 15 bestsellers on the New York Times list were about race, racism and the means by which white people could be better “allies”. Yes, there was Christian guilt there, but the phenomenally successful White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism offers no redemption or hope at all. There is really nothing that white liberals, Robin DiAngelo’s target audience, can ultimately do — except to recognise their privilege and feel guilty, because they benefit from the system.

Religions at their most anthropological offer people a means of rubbing along, through the ideas of justice and mercy. There is none of that in the political ideology of our time; it is far more a clash of wills and a battle for supremacy; there is certainly no sense of sacrifice.

The ultimate sacrifice, for Christians, was Jesus’s death on the cross, and Christ accepted his death to save mankind. George Floyd did not; he was not a martyr, he was a victim of murder. Of course, the veneration of Floyd is indisputably Christian in flavour; Jesus himself was a criminal, and the religion turned the moral hierarchy on its head by idolising the despised. Yet the religious fervour of our age is better described as cultish rather than religious — and the differences are important.

The term “Political Religion” was coined by the German philosopher Eric Voegelin in his 1938 book of the same name, which made the point that totalitarian political movements strongly resemble faiths. He later called all modern political movements “ersatz religion” and argued that after the Enlightenment people began to see their own activities as sacred, including their politics.

Which seems prophetic, if that’s not the wrong word.

This was followed after the war by Norman Cohn’s The Pursuit of the Millennium, a book that was talked about a fair bit as last summer dragged on. Cohn looked at various millennial Christian movements that had sprung up during the late medieval era and following the Reformation, his historical account having one eye on the tragedy that had just hit Europe. Most of the movements Cohn described shared certain characteristics, including a veneration of the poor and hatred of the rich, a belief in the inevitability of a future earthy paradise — “the Third Age” — and a division of the world into good and evil.

“These people could be regarded as remote precursors of Bakunin and of Nietzsche” and the “armed bohemians of National Socialism”, he wrote of one such group, the Brethren of the Free Spirit.

The Brethren believed in “a quasi-mystical anarchism — an affirmation of freedom so reckless and unqualified that it amounted to a total denial of every kind of restraint and limitation”. In order to come closer to God, they first had to engage in group sex and surprisingly the group didn’t have much trouble attracting recruits, until the Church cracked down on them.

More disturbing were the Flagellants, large groups of people who would proceed from town to town and whip themselves into an agonised, bloody fury, accompanied by weeping crowds. The flagellation movement had started in Italy in the 1260s, during a period of great stress, with an epidemic and a civil war, but over the decades had been taken up by the Germans, who made it far more extreme and violent, and also adding uniforms.

When the Black Death struck in 1348, it led to huge Flagellant processions and hysterical scenes wherever they went. But on top of spreading the disease, the group soon turned violent, possessing an angry, quasi-revolutionary element and a hatred of clerics, the rich and, most of all, Jews. Horrific pogroms followed, despite the Pope’s condemnations.

The Flaggelants had spread all over Germany, France and the Low Countries although strangely it never took off in England; a group arrived in London where they set up shop outside St Paul’s, proceeded to whip themselves and cry… and were met with stony, embarrassed silence. They soon left. The Flaggelants were eventually suppressed by the Church — bizarrely, its leaders were taken to Rome and publicly beaten, which surely can’t have been a terrible punishment.

The period culminated in the most extreme event of all, the Münster rebellion of 1534-5, when a group of Anabaptists created their own proto-communist paradise. It ended — incredibly! — with mass murder. The Münster rebels believed in equality, a dream of many Christian cults and one which in Cohn’s lifetime had also led to millions of deaths. It is an unachievable goal, but it still inspires believers today, even if the focus has moved from the individual to the group.

The leader of the Münster rebellion was an actor, a reliable force for evil throughout history. He had used the moral anarchy of the Reformation to charm, bully and sexually exploit — also a characteristic of cults throughout the ages, and one that distinguishes them from religions (a fuzzy difference at times). The political cults of today often have similar psychological dynamics.

Cult members are expected to give everything, body and soul, and this means keeping away from non-believing friends, and even denouncing family members who oppose the cult’s goals. One of the most disturbing trends of 2020 were videos of teenagers denouncing older family members for their racism or “white supremacy”. One teenager crowed on social media when her mother was punched at the Capitol for her opposition to BLM.

There were echoes of Soviet Russia and Mao’s China, both of which encouraged young people to denounce anti-communist family members. Many of the children who did so then suffered psychological traumas in later life as the enormity of what they had done dawned on them. But, then, the lure of peer popularity is incredibly strong with adolescents.

Cults enable bullying to flourish, endorsed by the ideology. Being a vehement believer in a cause, locked against powerful and malignant outside forces, is the perfect vehicle for anyone with sadistic or even violent tendencies; it has been seen throughout history, and it is quite obviously on display in many of the social justice causes of recent years.

We live in an age of changing social mores, and the speed of moral change was illustrated last year by the warnings Sky Cinema issued about old films reflecting the different social values of the year they were made in. One of the movies featuring this warning, a remake of Aladdin starring Will Smith, was made in…. 2019.

This kind of moral confusion is the perfect environment for bullies and sadists because it is far easier for people to be punished for using the wrong language, or having the wrong opinions, and for many it is a ruthless competition to reach the top. Most of the nastiness is mercifully online, but we had a taste of the medieval at one point when a latter-day mini-Münster — the CHOP — sprang up in Seattle.

The victims of that utopian experiment, not being part of the litany of the saints, have been largely forgotten, but the underlying violent energies of the social justice movement shouldn’t be. George Floyd the man is dead, and his family have received the justice they deserve, but George Floyd the icon will live on, a powerful symbol for the faithful as they strive to build a third age of racial equality.


Ed West’s book Tory Boy is published by Constable

edwest

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Johannes Kreisler
Johannes Kreisler
3 years ago

“Thank you George Floyd for sacrificing your life for justice …”

Ugh.
Finger down throat.
Yeeeech.

Anne Bradshaw
Anne Bradshaw
3 years ago

If Pelosi says it, or even thinks it, that’s enough to make me go ‘yeeeech’. The woman is a disgrace.

Last edited 3 years ago by Anne Bradshaw
Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago
Reply to  Anne Bradshaw

When I think of Nancy Pelosi, the words “rancid” and “hag” spring to mind.

Mike Boosh
Mike Boosh
3 years ago

Informative and amusing article. I particularly liked the bit about the flagellants attempting to setup shop in Britain being met by embarrassing silence. Reminds me of the good old days when we didn’t use to fall for imported cultish behaviour.

David Fitzsimons
David Fitzsimons
3 years ago
Reply to  Mike Boosh

Like dancing mania (my favourite) one instance of which presumably led to the hopping procession at Echternach, Luxembourg, which still happens.

Ray Zacek
Ray Zacek
3 years ago
Reply to  Mike Boosh

Actually that was a troup of comic entertainers, not sincere flagellants. Precursor of Monty Python.

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago
Reply to  Mike Boosh

Yes, the locals didn’t even organise a “whip round” for them in those days!

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago

He appears to have been the commonest of criminals, wholly unremarkable except for his misogyny.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

There used to be a ‘Judge Judy’ video clip of him at the age of 16, in front of her for car theft.
The circumstances of his demise come as no surprise.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago

Poor George he’ could have been a contender’. His teacher said he wanted to be a supreme judge while at school-and it seems he did appear in front of a lot of judges.A legal adviser sobbed ‘ I am so relieved that this is what justice finally looks like for my community’.Strange I don’t identify with someone just because we are the same hue.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

Look on the bright side, his family swagged $27 million. (gross).

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago

Unfortunately every family of every ‘offender’ will want their payoff.

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

Which they will now get, thanks to the hard earned taxpayer’s money.

Bianca Davies
Bianca Davies
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

No pay off required if police don’t kill subdued arrestees.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Bianca Davies

I think you’ll find there will be a lot more of ‘-Please send the police we have a problem’-‘Where are you calling from’? ‘Oh!.. Sorry they are all out on an extended lunchbreak-I’ll get someone to call you when they return’

David Platzer
David Platzer
3 years ago

And a free trip to Washinton to visit their friend, the “President” at the White House at the taxpayer’s expense. Perhaps it is time to talk about black privilege.

Last edited 3 years ago by David Platzer
Michael Coleman
Michael Coleman
3 years ago
Reply to  David Platzer

You are not allowed to talk about that. Re-education camp for you!

Giulia Khawaja
Giulia Khawaja
3 years ago

Agreed. Tried to up vote, rarely works.

Andrew Thompson
Andrew Thompson
3 years ago
Reply to  Giulia Khawaja

I ticked it for us both, I regularly get 2 or 3 upticks at the same time…sometimes just the 1; useless Unheard software

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago
Reply to  David Platzer

I don’t know why you call the “President” the “President.” (a case of Joe Bidenitis, tee! hee!)

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago

Their neighbours will be so jealous!

Kathy Prendergast
Kathy Prendergast
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

People like Pelosi would undoubtedly have crossed the street to avoid him if they’d encountered him in the state he was in, in his final hours.

Ray Zacek
Ray Zacek
3 years ago

Assuming Pelosi ever actually walks on a public thoroughfare without a security detail.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago

But more importantly so would the legal adviser. We have entered an Alice in Wonderland world where super-successful people-Vice President , Meghan etc can also class themselves as victims because they are BIPOC. This is not just personal hypocricy , it is government policy which now classifies all people of European origin as a privileged group, who oppress these other people.

M Spahn
M Spahn
3 years ago

The show didn’t go on the air until he was 20, perhaps it was then he appeared, or maybe you’re thinking of a different show.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  M Spahn

You are absolutely correct, my apologies!
Apparently there was a George Floyd IV and our chap
George Perry Floyd.
All very confusing.

Starry Gordon
Starry Gordon
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

I find it hard to believe you rightist types have fallen en masse into the ideological pothole of deprecating George Floyd’s character. How could you make such a mistake? There is more to politics than tribal grunting, you know. Usually I like arguing with rightists and soi-disant conservatives, but you all have to exert some wits and style.

Mark Gilmour
Mark Gilmour
3 years ago
Reply to  Starry Gordon

Of course the quality George Floyd’s character in no way mitigates what happened to him, save to the extent that his own actions contributed to his death.

But you must concede that the characterisation of Floyd as some kind of martyr figure would be hilarious if it wasn’t demonstrative of such a malevolent trajectory for culture and society.

If nothing else it demonstrates that George Floyd the man and his life mean little to those who have seized on the circumstances of his unfortunate death to advance their own agendas.

Last edited 3 years ago by Mark Gilmour
Starry Gordon
Starry Gordon
3 years ago
Reply to  Mark Gilmour

George Floyd is a tribal symbol, so his person is indeed of little meaning now to most of the people who are flogging it around for one reason or another. I do not refer solely to such as BLM. While I would not ascribe intention to an abstraction like a trajectory, I agree that the trajectory of events thus far observed does not bode well for our culture and society. The exertion of some intentionality might be of benefit to all. As in, someone should ask, ‘Where are we going with this?’

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago
Reply to  Starry Gordon

Good post. I don’t know why it got a minus. Perhaps it was from somebody who didn’t understand it.

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago
Reply to  Starry Gordon

At some point, where I think we go is that BLM will be formally proscribed as a criminal organisation, and CRT will be declared to be hate speech. We don’t need to hear from either; that way we won’t.

Kat L
Kat L
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

i disagree, i think it will go the exact opposite. we are headed into dark times.

Peter Dawson
Peter Dawson
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

In the UK it has become a political party.

Kat L
Kat L
3 years ago
Reply to  Starry Gordon

isn’t it obvious?

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
3 years ago
Reply to  Starry Gordon

I guess it has to be political. George Floyd put himself in harm’s way, repeatedly. His disrespect for the society that now martyrs him is stunning. The cop that arrested him is now as much a victim as were Floyd’s other victims. The cop was in the wrong in his callous action but so was Floyd. Tragic for both.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Starry Gordon

I presume when you say ‘rightist types’ you mean people who are in the right? Hopefully we are able to ‘exert some wits and style’-if we knew what it was,is it a ritual or do you have to pass an exam?

Starry Gordon
Starry Gordon
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

I’m just giving my reaction. Obviously, I have no authority, and you can take it or leave it. It’s obvious to me that complaining that George Floyd had many faults is a serious case of missing the point. And yet there’s been a great deal of that, here and elsewhere.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Starry Gordon

I agree with you in if you mean the police should try to treat everyone equally . However George was a well known person to the police and didn’t react to their request* , so they started to restrain him , which they felt was necessary. The media has decided to both demonize the police and romantize the criminal -which has happened in all these events which have occured in the last year. * In England in a poor area of a provincial city many years ago , police cars kept squealing to a holt beside my husband and myself ( who was heavily pregnant). They demanded we stand against a wall , state who we were,where going etc. This continued for weeks until they must have got bored. We did as asked at all times, made no complaint , but we hardly fitted the profile for Bonnie & Clyde-so I know some police can be complete b******ds.

Kathy Prendergast
Kathy Prendergast
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

The fact that he targeted a pregnant woman alone in her home – a planned and organized violent home invasion – .is unforgivable to me; I don’t care how many years he served for the crime, or if he wasn’t actually the one who pointed the loaded gun at her stomach (he wasn’t; after violently breaking into her home by posing as a uniformed water department inspector, he ransacked the place while one of his buddies held her at gunpoint). The guy was scum.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago

She also miscarried after the traumatic event-shouldn’t she get some of this 27 million payoff?

zac chang
zac chang
3 years ago

That doesnt give the police the right to execute him in the street though does it?

Colm McGinn
Colm McGinn
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

So it’s totally fine to execute him then? By strangulation?

Chris D
Chris D
3 years ago
Reply to  Colm McGinn

Execute? Strangulation? He died of a heart attack caused by a drug overdose.

zac chang
zac chang
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris D

Nope he died because a cop knelt on his neck for 9 minutes

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago
Reply to  Colm McGinn

No. I’m sure you’d like people you hate to think like that, so you could hate them too, but no.
He was simply a common or garden woman-abusing criminal who led a wholly worthless life, which not surprisingly put himself into harm’s way, which meant he died an unpleasant death to which his vices of criminality and drug abuse contributed.
There are no lessons whatsoever for anyone else in how he died, and he is as deserving of sympathy as a car thief who crashes the car he stole.

Starry Gordon
Starry Gordon
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

The question is not whether George Floyd deserved to die, or what he died of. For the Right, who are supposed to be concerned about principles of authority, legitimacy, order, law, and personal conduct, strangling a bound captive — publicly, as if it were just another day’s work — cannot be justified, however much it gratifies anyone’s tribal instincts, especially when it is performed by officers of the state supposedly in the line of duty. How are you going to admonish people to better behavior if you don’t adhere to your own principles?

Jon Redman
Jon Redman
3 years ago
Reply to  Starry Gordon

Try responding to what I wrote rather to what you wish I had written or to what you imagine “the Right” thinks. And don’t give me any baloney about “principles of authority” – it’s not the Right that tries to wreck people’s lives for disagreeing with it.
All we learnt from Floyd’s death is that if you’re a violent drug-using career criminal who attracts police attention you may wind up dead. I don’t care in the slightest that he wound up dead. As, like almost everyone, I am not a violent drug-using career criminal who attracts police attention, I’m never going to be at risk in the same circumstances, nor is anyone else, so there’s nothing instructive or noteworthy about his death.
If Jimmy Savile had died in police custody I wouldn’t care either.

Last edited 3 years ago by Jon Redman
Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

The epitaph for Georgen Floyd could read: “Scumbag killed, then canonized.”

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
3 years ago
Reply to  Starry Gordon

The police officer involved should have been, and was tried, for murder and/or manslaughter and in the event were found guilty. That is the correct response.

However, after Floyd’s death, there was widespread destruction of property and, yes, assault and killing of other black and white people. Wikipedia says ‘at least 19 people’ died.

These riots were an outrage, and should have been condemned unequivocally by everyone. Instead they were almost cheered on by many left-liberal people and institutions even ironically CNN, whose own premises were invaded and smashed up). It was a very, very bad thing and an appalling precedent that it no such condemnation was made.

No one remembers or commemorates the victims, whatever their colour. Why not, I ask? I don’t know the answer, but it is all too plausible that extreme left-wing elements with a revolutionary agenda were deliberately trying to stoke as much violence and destruction as they could, people who don’t actually give a damn for Floyd his family or anyone else caught as ‘collateral damage’.

This rioting by the way would not have been tolerated, and would have been suppressed rapidly in almost any non-Western state.

The article is about how George Floyd was quasi-sanctified by the BLM movement and its many allies (in my mind ‘useful idiots’). The ‘rightist’ arguments on here, simply say that he in no way justifies that treatment.

Last edited 3 years ago by Andrew Fisher
Kat L
Kat L
3 years ago
Reply to  Starry Gordon

imo it should have been manslaughter, not murder. they didn’t just happen by; chauvin was called into the situation. he was stupid, not murderous.

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

His death was terrible and shouldn’t have happened, but he was certainly no saint.

Peter Dawson
Peter Dawson
3 years ago
Reply to  Jon Redman

I would add his extreme brutish ugliness.

JP Martin
JP Martin
3 years ago

Pelosi’s vision of George Floyd is so typical. It reminds me of the absurd character in the film Knives Out – the young Latina caregiver who is so pure that she vomits whenever she attempts to tell a lie. What sort of serious writer invents a character like that? California progressives who don’t see Latinos as real people, if you ask me. For California liberals, who live in a sanitised environment where they never have any meaningful encounters with anyone who isn’t exactly like them, the great unwashed are just blank screens on which they can project their latest psychodrama and their obsession du jour. They are the worst.

Pierre Pendre
Pierre Pendre
3 years ago

An effort is under way to demonise a white cop in Ohio who shot dead a black teenage girl who was about to stab another black girl. Whether the wound would have been fatal had the knife struck we will never know.
Valerie Jarrett of Obama fame said the cop should have tried to defuse the argument. How he would have done that from 10 yards away while the knife’s trajectory was already in progress she does not explain. Basketball player LeBronJames tweeted to his 50 million followers that the cop was “next”. As the media did not fail to note, the shooting coincided with the Chauvin verdict.
Despite videos which clearly show the knife, some liberals are claiming the assailant was unarmed. Others are claiming that teenagers get into knife fights all the time and the cops shouldn’t interfere. The problem with that argument – or rather one of many – is that this wasn’t an equal fight. A girl who was armed was attacking a girl who was unarmed and unable to escape because she had her back to a parked car.
No one would even have noticed this incident had the girls been white. There’s a contradiction here for Black Lives Matter et al. to resolve. If an unarmed black girl’s life matters less than that of her black assailant as liberals seem to be claiming, all black lives do not matter equally.

Douglas McNeish
Douglas McNeish
3 years ago
Reply to  Pierre Pendre

Radical movements such as BLM do not concern themselves with resolving contradictions in their dogmas. As the writer points out, its doctrines are to be believed and obeyed, as any observer of cults will know. The consequence of challenging them from inside is banishment at best, and from the outside, bullying and cancellation – again at best. In common with all organised religion, any event which does not conform with the narrative is passed over or dismissed as an aberration – witness the immediate explanation of these as the result of “mental health issues” by their allies in the media.

Devin Watson
Devin Watson
3 years ago

Your comment made me think of Jasper Fforde’s clever and amusing dystopia “Shades of Grey” (not to be confused with the sleazy garbage of a similar name). It has a character called “the Apocryphal Man” who everyone has to pretend they can’t see lest they violate “The Rules of Muncel”. Acknowledging his existence would question the recieved wisdom, the indoctrinated perfect order of the society (where does He fit into it?) so they can’t even point to the aberration without extreme risk to themselves! There’s more to it but I don’t want to spoil the fun. Suffice it to say people end up deploying all sorts of roundabout language when he shows up to take a plate of food or sit in a chair that someone else planned to sit in, all the while buck naked.

Betty Fyffe
Betty Fyffe
3 years ago
Reply to  Pierre Pendre

It wouldn’t have been a problem if the cop was black as well.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  Betty Fyffe

No indeed. Hence the perpetrator of the premeditated killing of Ms Alisha Babbitt is to go free with total anonymity.

He/She will have to live with their conscience, assuming they even have one, which is doubtful.

CYRIL NAMMOCK
CYRIL NAMMOCK
3 years ago

Ashli.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  CYRIL NAMMOCK

Yes, thanks!
Some how it turned into a classical pre nomen.

Kathy Prendergast
Kathy Prendergast
3 years ago
Reply to  Betty Fyffe

Oh, there are still riots when black cops kill black criminals; happened in Milwaukee a few years ago. But still, the media and the elites can’t milk it in the same way.

Johannes Kreisler
Johannes Kreisler
3 years ago
Reply to  Pierre Pendre

Frankly i don’t quite understand why the police even bothers with saving black lives from black knifers. They could just say “You don’t want police? Fair enough, bye!” – and leave them to their own resources.

Nikki Hayes
Nikki Hayes
3 years ago
Reply to  Pierre Pendre

I have watched the video of this event – the woman was clearly moving forward with intent to stab the woman up against the car. But of course the BLM bunch immediately labelled it as a racist murder by police.

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago

I would be interested to see if someone is brave enough to write an essay on ‘What if George Floyd had been white’?

Aldo Maccione
Aldo Maccione
3 years ago

it’d be a short essay.

JP Martin
JP Martin
3 years ago
Reply to  Aldo Maccione

I lack sufficient imagination to write it

John Lewis
John Lewis
3 years ago

Or how about having Chauvin as a black trigger happy capitol guard while Floyd becomes an unarmed white woman?

David Platzer
David Platzer
3 years ago
Reply to  John Lewis

No one would care. For that matter, how many people still talk about Samuel Paty, the French schoolmaster whose head was cut off several months ago for discussing in class the murders of the Charlie Hebdo staff? He was a genuine martyr to liberal democracy if that is still can be said to exist except as a smokescreen for leftist bilge.

Hardee Hodges
Hardee Hodges
3 years ago
Reply to  David Platzer

You can bet his family didn’t get the grief bribe.

JP Martin
JP Martin
3 years ago
Reply to  David Platzer

That Time Magazine celebrated Assa Traoré rather than Samuel Paty is an indication of the rot in modern culture. For the woke- the self-hating and suicidal fanatics of the left– a black criminal is always more worthy than an honourable white man. Without exaggeration, civilisation is at risk if this situation cannot be reversed.

Kat L
Kat L
3 years ago
Reply to  JP Martin

i fear it has passed the ‘at risk’ stage…

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago

They don’t have to. What about the premeditated murder of Ms Alisha Babbitt by a so called Capitol Police Guard?
Not only does this murderer not face prosecution, he has even been given total anonymity!

No wonder Georges Clemenceau described the US as country that “had gone from Barbarism to Decadence without the normal interval of Civilisation”.

Paul Wright
Paul Wright
3 years ago

What about the premeditated murder of Ms Alisha Babbitt by a so called Capitol Police Guard?

If you were that bothered about it, rather than just defending the right of police to kill black people, you’d have got Ashli Babbitt’s name right. The investigation was closed without charging the police officer who killed her, because she was shot while trying to break through a barricade protecting legislators, while taking part in an insurrection. Conversely, Floyd was an habitual criminal, but prone and handcuffed when he was suffocated by his murderer, so no threat to the cop or others.

Last edited 3 years ago by Paul Wright
Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Wright

Thanks for that ‘Whitewash’ both literally and metaphorically.

The video film is unequivocal, premeditated murder beyond any shadow of doubt. It reminds me rather of that other deplorable killing of Lee Harvey Oswald Esq by Jack Ruby Esq which I watched in some astonishment on a Back & White Telly back in 1963.

The problem is the Capitol killer appears to have been Black and in the current climate that just too embarrassing to admit.

Duly admonished over Ashli for Alisha, but at least you could still identify who I was writing about could you not?

Finally on what grounds do you have the impertinence to suggest that I “defend the right of the police to kill black people”?

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Wright

Had she been black and attempting to break through a barricade the police officer would have been charged with murder.

Kat L
Kat L
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Wright

not an insurrection, most weren’t armed and not one of them killed anyone. it was a riot regardless of how corporate propagandists like to frame it.

CYRIL NAMMOCK
CYRIL NAMMOCK
3 years ago

Ashli.

Starry Gordon
Starry Gordon
3 years ago

Different tribal customs. Poor White people seem to worship the police, whereas poor Black people and their friends seem to be pretty hostile. Hence, when a poor White person is gratuitously murdered by the police, which probably happens at about the same rate as that of poor Black people, it’s nothing — they have no tribe to back them up, or they think the police are their tribe.

Bianca Davies
Bianca Davies
3 years ago

Cannot possibly compare completely different circumstances.

Paddy Taylor
Paddy Taylor
3 years ago

The only response would be ” George who?”
Had he been white the media would not have reported the story beyond a footnote in the local paper. His death would have remained wholly unremarkable.

Guy Johnson
Guy Johnson
3 years ago

It already happened. Look up Tony Timpa.

David Jory
David Jory
3 years ago
Reply to  Guy Johnson

And Shaver as well.
However, on this special day I will have Kriss Donald in my thoughts.

Last edited 3 years ago by David Jory
John Lewis
John Lewis
3 years ago
Reply to  David Jory

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6129409/stephen-lawrence-day-what-date/

For some reason the loathsome former PM did not decree a Kriss Donald day.

Chris D
Chris D
3 years ago
Reply to  Guy Johnson

You don’t even have to be white. No one gave a damn about David Dorn, black ex-cop murdered by “racial justice” looters while protecting his pal’s pawn shop.

G Harris
G Harris
3 years ago
Reply to  Chris D

Floyd was definitely murdered in the second degree by Chauvin, but just read up on your Dorn comment

At the time, Trump’s response to Dorn’s killing was thus,

‘Our highest respect to the family of David Dorn, a Great Police Captain from St. Louis, who was viciously shot and killed by despicable looters last night. We honor our police officers, perhaps more than ever before. Thank you!”

To which filmmaker Ava DuVernay apparently angrily responded,

“We won’t let you use this Black man for your political gain. You can try. But we will not let it happen. May he rest in peace. May the truth about his murderers come to light. And may he not have his name dragged into your vicious, evil game.”

This CNN headline-making latter comment not only infers to my mind that its relatively high profile poster might have had a pretty strong inkling as to the ‘ethnicity’ of his likely killers, but also that their skin colour was irrelevant to this particular murder, which it undoubtedly is, just not to her….

What is most telling here is that Trump didn’t see fit to mention it, portraying Dorn purely as a decent ex-public servant rather than as a ‘black’ ex-public servant, or even to simply reduce him to being a man or a ‘black’ man righteously defending his friend’s business from looters.

The upshot of all this is that it’s not difficult to see who is often projecting ‘race’ onto all of this and who is uniquely allowed to own and control this narrative in order to perpetuate it and who is utterly forbidden from doing so, in no small part for fear of derailing its seemingly inexorable trajectory of perpetual grievance.

White people killing white people and black people killing black people might well be a story, but they’re still just unfortunate ‘deaths’ and how much melanin they have in their skin is irrelevant, but when a white person kills a black person, particularly if the former is in authority of any kind, then this almost invariably supercharges the narrative to a story of an abhorrent, historically informed abuse of power heavily predicated on skin colour.

What I find most disturbing is that people like Biden, Pelosi and Harris are unquestioningly quite happy to buy wholesale into this divisive narrative regardless and, in the miserable case of George Floyd, cheerfully, ‘use this black man for’ their ‘own political gain’ without so much as a hint of a blush, and doubtless without any objection whatsoever from the very same Ava DuVernay mentioned above who excoriated Trump for apparently trying to do so

Thus, in conclusion, to the BLM movement and their like, Dorn represented nothing more than a statistic or worse an inconvenient anomaly that simply doesn’t fit their narrative.

Last edited 3 years ago by G Harris
Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
3 years ago

He’d still be dead but without the rioting or the trial. The end.

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

Long story short.

Alan B
Alan B
3 years ago

John McWhorter may be the writer you’re looking for.

JACK Templeton
JACK Templeton
3 years ago
Reply to  Alan B

Or Glen Loury or Coleman Hughes. 

Chauncey Gardiner
Chauncey Gardiner
3 years ago

Remember Tony Timpa? There’s an answer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c-E_i8Q5G0

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago

Lots of interesting answers and the main thing that I was thinking is that all the reasonable people I know would have thought that he would have got what was coming. I also believe that there are questions to be asked of the excessive response to him being arrested, but let the courts do their job without the ludicrous riots and the kangaroo court.

Vilde Chaye
Vilde Chaye
3 years ago

Two words: Tony Timpa; in other words, nothing.

Jayne Lago
Jayne Lago
3 years ago

No one would have been the wiser! But we should be grateful to this false idol because we now know there is very little backbone in law enforcement, commerce, justice, media, politics, academia and sadly young people. The latter however do have an excuse, they are easily lead and social media cesspits, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, are all skilled masters. All that the rest of us can do is wait for the time, which will come, when we will be able to rise up and castigate our accusers with impunity
,

Ray Zacek
Ray Zacek
3 years ago

That is a one-word essay: Who?

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago

I expect they would get death threats and might have to go into hiding.

jcurwin
jcurwin
3 years ago

His name would have been Tony Timpa. Look up the video–almost identical to the George Floyd episode, except Timpa was white. And mentally ill.

Jonathan Oldbuck
Jonathan Oldbuck
3 years ago

Good article. Ed might have mentioned though the engine of the current instability in the USA: the pursuit of so called ‘equity’, fuelled by critical theory. Together they act as a perpetual division-generator and gasoline for the revolution’s unending bonfire.
Critical race theory, in particular, is causing Americans to lose their minds as it forces them to account for *every* different human behavioural trait between different skin colours as immediate evidence for race-hatred. No national leaders are offering a way out of this. Unless somebody does it will destroy the USA.

Elizabeth W
Elizabeth W
3 years ago

Canada is in the same boat,I am afraid.

Jayne Lago
Jayne Lago
3 years ago

And the UK!

Alex Lekas
Alex Lekas
3 years ago

Every year American police kill about 40-50 unarmed civilians, of whom just under half are black
Actually, numbers show that about 70% or so civilians killed by cops are NOT black, yet there are no riots, no looting, no hysteria after their deaths. And those stats are incredibly easy to find, if one is disposed to find them. Studies have shown that black officers are more likely to shoot black suspects, yet the talking point of ‘racist cops’ continues, despite a significant number of black officers, command staff, and chiefs.
George Floyd set in motion a series of events that ended badly. No one forced him to practically OD, and no one forced him to belligerent. Yes, Chauvin is culpable, too, but painting the event as Floyd happily going about his day until this rogue cop showed up is a bit much.

Betty Fyffe
Betty Fyffe
3 years ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

It’s only a question of time before black cops who shoot black criminals are called “Uncle Toms”.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  Betty Fyffe

Aren’t they called Coconuts already?
(Black on the outside and white on the inside) for the technically minded.

JACK Templeton
JACK Templeton
3 years ago
Reply to  Alex Lekas

On average around 50 unarmed Americans are killed by police every year, of those 50 the majority of course are white, usually between 40 to 50 percent. Anywhere between 25 to 35 percent are Black, with the remaining group Hispanics with a very small percent Asians.
If you take those figures at face value there seems to be a racial disparity because African Americans make up less than 14 percent of the population of the US but suffer around 35 percent of unarmed shootings. However in reality, you have to adjust these percentages for other variables, for example in practice, statistically and on a daily basis, the police are not encountering individuals in proportion to national racial demographic percentages. The Police are normally responding to 911 calls and reliable records show that police get a higher percentage of 911 calls from black neighbourhoods, records show a racial disparity in committed crime such that black people are around seven times more likely to commit or suffer homicides. If therefore the police are getting around 7 times the number of homicide calls from black communities there are just many more opportunities for things to go wrong. Therefore, once we control for those important variables, as the vast majority of the most rigorous studies, such as for instance Prof. Roland G Fryer’s Empirical Analysis of Racial Differences in Police Use of Force do, one can only come to the conclusion that there is no racial bias when it comes to likelihood of police pulling the trigger on unarmed black people as opposed to any other racial group, precisely the opposite in fact. 

Lesley van Reenen
Lesley van Reenen
3 years ago
Reply to  JACK Templeton

I saw that stat that in 2019, 19 black and 29 white unarmed people were shot by police.

Jack Walker
Jack Walker
3 years ago

This man was a violent criminal and the world is a better place without him. I have no time for people that want to make him a martyr.

joycebrette
joycebrette
3 years ago
Reply to  Jack Walker

Very well said.

Jayne Lago
Jayne Lago
3 years ago
Reply to  Jack Walker

Makes you wonder why the media benefit by making him a saint……..give it time!

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Jayne Lago

They identify with him?

Antony Hirst
Antony Hirst
3 years ago

The whole situation is ripe for an appeal and a complete acquittal. There was never any possibility for justice. And by “justice” I don’t mean ‘the correct expected judgement’, which the lunatics want, I mean judgement that fits the evidence. Clearly, the jury was got at, obvious by the ambiguity of the evidence and the speed at which they reached the answer.

nick harman
nick harman
3 years ago
Reply to  Antony Hirst

I don’t think there is any doubt Chauvin’s actions caused the death. He has not been convicted of murder because it was never suggested what he did was premeditated.
Chauvin deserves jail time, but what he did was simply wrong and nothing to do with race.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  nick harman

According to the ‘Word of God’, otherwise known as the BBC, he has convicted of second-degree murder.Is that murder or isn’t it?

The person who needs “jail time” is the cold blooded killer of Ms Alisha Babbitt on the 9th Jan last. The fact the killer appears to be Black is of note.

However I doubt very much if you give a toss about that do you?

Guy Johnson
Guy Johnson
3 years ago

Second degree murder is intent to kill without premeditation.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  Guy Johnson

Thank you.
That sounds like an impossibility, rather like walking on water.

michael harris
michael harris
3 years ago
Reply to  Guy Johnson

And was there INTENT to kill in this case? And did the prosecution even try to show INTENT?

Antony Hirst
Antony Hirst
3 years ago

100% But she was not as important as a drug-addled convicted violent armed robber.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  Antony Hirst

White, and a military veteran I gather.
In other words “Guilty on both counts”.

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
3 years ago

Second degree murder is “not premeditated murder, intended to cause bodily harm”.

Last edited 3 years ago by Stephanie Surface
CYRIL NAMMOCK
CYRIL NAMMOCK
3 years ago

Ashli.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  CYRIL NAMMOCK

Yes, thanks, I subconsciously turned it into a classical pre nomen.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
3 years ago

‘I doubt very much if you give a toss……’

Nick Harman’s comment seemed pretty reasonable and unexceptional to me.

Why do you, as so many do on this site, so often impute motives and views of others that they have not said, and you have no evidence for?

Antony Hirst
Antony Hirst
3 years ago
Reply to  nick harman

Now that really confuses me. Absolutely everything reported that Chauvin did was contradicted by the evidence presented in the trial. There was not even any actual evidence that his knee was on Floyd’s neck in a way that could have even contributed to his death. Only an appeal can properly unravel this as it is so clear, that non of the evidence was properly explored by the jury.
Tbh, I don’t even know which way is up any more.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Antony Hirst

They weren’t allowed to use the bodycam film as evidence which clearly shows his knee was on his shoulder , rather than neck. However someone I know who is very bright intellectually still insists the policeman deliberately killed Floyd that way.As the police only arrived answering what is quite a trivial call , its not like he woke up & thought ‘I know today I’ll go out and kill somebody and ruin my whole life’.

Paul Ansell
Paul Ansell
3 years ago
Reply to  nick harman

If you listen to the testimony from the doctor the defence called in, there is indeed doubt about Chauvins actions causing the death.
His conclusions after a day in the stand were that underlying health conditions, high levels of Fentanyl and Amphetamines plus the physical constraints combined to cause his death.
Therefore cause of death ought to be “undetermined”. Chauvin is not guiltless, clearly in breach of a duty of care…..but the way he has been thrown under a bus suggests something much more disturbing..

zac chang
zac chang
3 years ago
Reply to  Paul Ansell

What’s disturbing is the way you white supremacists will come up with anything to excuse the cold blooded murder of a black man

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  zac chang

What about a Black Capitol policeman killing a white woman, Ms Ashli Babbitt?
Or did you miss that one Zac?

Ralph Windsor
Ralph Windsor
3 years ago
Reply to  zac chang

….said a passing CCP troll.

Last edited 3 years ago by Ralph Windsor
Jayne Lago
Jayne Lago
3 years ago
Reply to  zac chang

Come on white supremacists or not you have to admit this was a forgone conclusion no matter what happened. And actually I would like to ask you……wouldn’t you say “white supremacists” is racist but I guess that doesn’t count!

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  zac chang

When you say ‘white supremacists’ I presume you mean Trump supporters? As it is allowed that 70 million voted for him and add in teenage support that makes about 100 million-thats a nation not a clique. If you want to hear the words of a supremacist , listen to the utterances of a former cricket player , now leader. Strangely our governing class favours his ideas over the likes of Trump , otherwise why would they not only invite millions to live here but give them priority over the law re-hundreds thousands young victims and the recent Batley episode?

Colm McGinn
Colm McGinn
3 years ago
Reply to  zac chang

Thank you for your sanity, among this group of racist reactionaries.

dandj26
dandj26
3 years ago
Reply to  nick harman

Silly, it is probably a relic now.

Dorothy Slater
Dorothy Slater
3 years ago
Reply to  nick harman

it should not have had anything to do with race, but it does. Although Chauvin was not actually accused of kneeing Floyd BECAUSE he was black, the MM has made him into an icon for BLM showing proof that America and all white Americans are racist. Now of course we are not just anti-Black but also anti-Asian. Interestingly, all of this is making me. an old line Liberal and Howard Zinn devotee, into a flag waving lover of the country .
.

michael harris
michael harris
3 years ago
Reply to  nick harman

But, Nick, of course what he did wasn’t premeditated; he only arrived on the scene seconds before his actions. The question you may be striving to ask is this: were his actions INTENDED to kill or harm Floyd. If so it’s murder pure and simple. If not it is, at the most, by any honest judgement manslaughter and undeserving of an up to 40 year jail sentence.

Andy Yorks
Andy Yorks
3 years ago
Reply to  michael harris

You would never have got a conviction for Murder or indeed Manslaughter under English Law. Floyd died of heart disease and Fentanyl poisoning.

Jayne Lago
Jayne Lago
3 years ago
Reply to  Andy Yorks

I wouldn’t be so sure is I was you!

Alan Thorpe
Alan Thorpe
3 years ago
Reply to  Antony Hirst

If you had been on the jury with an angry mob outside, how would you have voted? This was mob rule.

Last edited 3 years ago by Alan Thorpe
Antony Hirst
Antony Hirst
3 years ago
Reply to  Alan Thorpe

100% You would be in dereliction of your duty to your family if you were the 13th man to say “hang on a second”. The best movie ever IMHO (the original Henry Fonda one please), was meant to be a truth check, but in the days when demented threatening mobs were not even imaginable.

Lindsay Gatward
Lindsay Gatward
3 years ago
Reply to  Antony Hirst

Correct. The judge’s comments on the very vocal political demands for ‘guilty’ have perhaps deliberately set up solid grounds for a miss-trail so that justice can be served at a more distant time and in a less aggravated community. There are other reasons for an appeal and the various medical evidences surely guarantee that the accused did not actually kill the ‘victim’.

Last edited 3 years ago by Lindsay Gatward
Jayne Lago
Jayne Lago
3 years ago
Reply to  Antony Hirst

To be honest there was no need for a trial. Irrespective of DC in this, the outcome was clear because the new order is guilty before innocence.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Antony Hirst

Where are you going to hold the appeal-the moon? Everone concerned with this case were frightened out of their wits.

Marcus Leach
Marcus Leach
3 years ago

What must be apparent is that most of what is accepted and taught as history must be complete bunkum.
If in the modern world its the likes of George Floyd can be transformed in to an heroic martyr when there is abundant evidence to the contrary, the idea that an historical account from decades or centuries ago could be considered reliable is absurd.

Last edited 3 years ago by Marcus Leach
Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago

“George Floyd did not; he was not a martyr, he was a victim of murder. “

“George Floyd the man is dead, and his family have received the justice they deserve,”

Is this guy a kool-aid drinker, or just CYO, and like the jury, saying what is obviously false to avoid personal, and professional, violence.

When the new generation of Pelosi Saints, who have based their life on Floyd’s, begin their crusade in your community it will get rough.

Jeff Mason
Jeff Mason
3 years ago

George Floyd was turned into a martyr because the left needed a crisis and a real one was not available. Boil this down to the simple facts: a career felon high on drugs tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. As he was being arrested for the crime, he ingested his stash of fentanyl to avoid a drug charge. Not surprisingly, he died of an overdose. This is not a rare occurrence nor is it a mystery. The only thing that made it noteworthy was the fact Floyd was black and the cops mostly white. Had he been a white junkie and a black cop, it would have been Two line story in the police blotter of the metro section – and rightfully so. The difference? Liberal political agenda. We are seeing it again with the killing of the black girl in Columbus who was shot as she was stabbing another black girl half he size right in front of the cop! Again, same situation with white people would not garner a second of airtime. Since the girl was black, it is instantly called racism and news outlets are editing the video to NOT show the knife in her hand and labeling her ‘unarmed.’ Total dishonesty.

Sam Cel Roman
Sam Cel Roman
3 years ago

The difference between a religion and a cult isn’t the behavior of the leader, but whether or not you can leave. And nobody in the USA is allowed to “leave” the new cult of Critical Race Theory.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago

Serial Criminal, 1) The judgement Should have been Manslaughter 2) American Police shoot more Whites,they are ‘Trigger’ happy 3) floyd is No martyr he was jailed 4 times…

Ray Hall
Ray Hall
3 years ago

I really appreciated Mr West’s comments about the Flagellants, despite the variable spelling , and especially the role of English embarrassment .

Judy Englander
Judy Englander
3 years ago
Reply to  Ray Hall

That made me chuckle. Obviously the English character is many centuries old.

nick harman
nick harman
3 years ago
Reply to  Judy Englander

Although one wonders what the English character will be in ten or so years time. We are a multiculture now after all.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  nick harman

No we are not. 6-7% ‘other’ is a minority, for the present.

Betty Fyffe
Betty Fyffe
3 years ago

Those are the official figures. Only the official figures.
Anyway, who says that a minority can’t have disproportionate power? I believe that the political class has, and they are certainly a very small minority.

D Ward
D Ward
3 years ago
Reply to  Betty Fyffe

It’s certainly happened before. Rwanda, for example. And Fiji, from recollection.

Richard Turpin
Richard Turpin
3 years ago

I’m afraid this whole situation is untethering values and the laws as well as stampeding intellectual discussion and rational debate. Pelosi is unhinged and like the rest of her ilk, is creating more division and hate by jumping on the proverbial bandwagon. The United States through its own stupidity, vanity and lack of thought and guts is heading into the abyss.
Unfortunately, statistics clearly evidence disproportionate levels of crime being attributed to the black community. Fact. Isn’t it about time the black communities took some responsibility for the high levels of mysogyny, homophobia, domestic abuse and violent, aggravated crime? What about the Black Community addressing the disproportionate number of single mothers raising young boys on their own who desperately need a role model that stand up for the values and behaviours that will contribute to better life style choices and a better quality of life in the future? What the white cop did was appalling and he had a history of being over zealous but the trail reminded me of the OJ Simpson outcome. He never ever stood a chance of a fair trial or anybody providing any evidence, however damaging, to prove the contrary to what the mob wanted. Floyd was high on Fentanyl and the real cause of death has been documented as such. Biden sentenced him before the Jury was out. The whole situation is wrong and distorted on so many levels. I was reading about the BLM mob that turned up at a diner in New York yesterday and its white leader yelled rascist profanities at other white diners telling them they weren’t wanted and to leave the city. The idiot was too stupid, like the majority of these tools, to see the irony.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago

The video of the murder of Ms Alisha Babbitt seems to show the perpetrator as Black. Is that possible?

Jeremy Daw
Jeremy Daw
3 years ago

He will not face prosecution.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  Jeremy Daw

Well, that is a national disgrace, the video evidence is overwhelming.

Perhaps the ‘wrong’ side won the Civil War?

CYRIL NAMMOCK
CYRIL NAMMOCK
3 years ago

Ashli.

John Armstrong
John Armstrong
3 years ago

Ashli…

Fred Atkinstalk
Fred Atkinstalk
3 years ago

“Right now, hundreds of millions of Muslims are fasting for the month of Ramadan, during which time they will raise huge amounts for charity”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but would it not be more accurate to say that they will raise huge amounts for islamic charities.

Robbie PPC
Robbie PPC
3 years ago

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but would it not be more accurate to say that they will raise huge amounts for islamic charities.”

You’re right. One entire 5th of which raised ‘charitable’ zakat must by order of the Sharia’t be hypothecated to fund jihad against non-muslims.

Last edited 3 years ago by Robbie PPC
Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago
Reply to  Robbie PPC

It is a pity that so many non Muslims (including the Pope) don’t know that.

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago

You are right. They don’t raise money to help non Muslims.

Jordan Flower
Jordan Flower
3 years ago

The theatrical show that performative, elite, woke progressives put on around the Floyd saga is incredibly translucent and flimsy.
They self-flagellate and weep for his death, but they interact with and know approximately zero living people like Floyd. Why? Because ivory tower, elite, ruling class liberals do not go anywhere near the neighborhoods where people like Floyd live.
They don’t associate with opioid addicted, women-abusing, meth-using petty criminals in the hood. This is testable. Ask them to introduce you to anyone remotely resembling George Floyd. They can’t. Because the only friends they have are the upper middle class $12 latte-sipping cosmopolitan, posh aristocrats like themselves.
These elites sit afar in their lofty perches as people in the ghetto do “ghetto things”, and instead of holding them to account, or raising the standard for them to live better lives, they lower the bar, raise thresholds for prosecutable crimes, reduce police presence, enable destructive behavior, and offer more programs that incentivize reliance not on themselves or their own self-betterment, but on the state. All of this under the guise of “empathy”.
Progressives have not changed for over 100 years. They still see the lower classes, and especially the black lower class, as incapable of social ascendance. Hell, they don’t even think blacks are capable of acquiring state IDs.
They do not care about the “Floyds” who are alive; they do not want people like him to get off drugs and live upstanding lives, because ultimately, they don’t think they’re capable of that.
Floyds do not matter to these people until they are cadavers, whose lifeless bodies are then strung up as political props so this ruling class can seize more power.
You don’t even have to listen closely to hear the evidence of this. Every so often, some of these people will say the quiet part out loud—no surprise that it would be Pelosi, who is a career state puppet, and who has been doing it so long, is completely fried and operating on a rich cocktail of pharmaceuticals to maintain any brain function at all.
So she blurts it out, “Thank you George Floyd for sacrificing your life for justice.”
Right now, there are 10s of thousands of people like George Floyd, addicted to pills, committing petty crimes, living less than ideal lives. But they don’t matter to the liberal ruling class. Because they’re still alive. And it’s not black lives that matter to them. It’s only black deaths.

Andrew Thompson
Andrew Thompson
3 years ago
Reply to  Jordan Flower

But of course ‘the Floyds’ have votes thus keeping the elite in the elevated manner they have all become accustomed to. And so the merry-go-round goes on, and on, and on….until one day…Your comment was spot on the nail Jordan, I couldn’t have used words anywhere near as fine myself.

Stuart Y
Stuart Y
3 years ago

Nor me!

Chauncey Gardiner
Chauncey Gardiner
3 years ago

George Floyd: Accidental Martyr — given a big stretch of a very generous imagination.
George was something of a man-child with a room temperature IQ — not exactly an inspiring figure. An insipidly boring figure, really. But, he was the only candidate martyr on hand that week, it seems.

djeffrey083
djeffrey083
3 years ago

George Floyd is only a matryr to a totally racist organization BLM when in fact he was nothing but a violent lowlife who is no loss to society at all. You are making a hero out of someone who led home invasions, put a gun to a woman stomach and threatened to kill her before she was pistol-whipped around the head and body and even though I agree no arrestee should be killed in custody i think that applies to all regardless of colour or religion, in the UK out of all the people that have died in police custody only 8% have been black, so do the other 92% not matter at all, of course they do but it is obvious that real name of BLM is black lives matter only when killed by a white person, to them 800k blacks murdered in Africa in genocides is irrelevant but if one of those 800k were accidently killed by a white man they would campaign all around the world. They increase racism instead of cure it as they are racist themselves towards white people

Andy Yorks
Andy Yorks
3 years ago

This ridiculous ‘trial’ made the ‘Peoples Court’ presided over by Roland Freisler seem the very model of jurisprudence. Chauvin didn’t kill Floyd and you could never have secured a conviction in an English Court as the Post Mortem just does not substantiate a verdict of Murder or even Manslaughter under English Law. Floyd died of heart disease and an overdose of Fentanyl. Chauvin might be an unpleasant character, but he didn’t kill anyone and right from the word go had no chance whatsoever of a fair trial. The whole circus was a damn disgrace.

Vilde Chaye
Vilde Chaye
3 years ago

Seth Myers channeling his inner AOC: “a conviction on all three counts does not mean justice was done. True justice would mean George Floyd would still be alive today. True justice would mean black people no longer having to live in fear of being killed by police.”
What nonsense. When he says “true justice” he actually means “utopia” he’s just too ignorant to realize it. It’s like saying “true justice means that Bernie Madoff wouldn’t have ripped off all those investors.” But he did. So the best we can do it punish the perpetrator, that’s the whole point of the JUSTICE system. He’s simply handwringing that we don’t live in a perfect world, which, from his lofty, affluent, and dare I say privileged (and very twisted) perspective, seems to be a possibility, human nature be damned.

Last edited 3 years ago by Vilde Chaye
Niobe Hunter
Niobe Hunter
3 years ago

Horst Wessel

Geoff H
Geoff H
3 years ago

How George Floyd became a martyr.
Easy. Someone knew a good thing when they saw it and ran with it. The rest is history. Nothing to do with martyrdom, it’s to do with money and power. Follow the money and it will lead to the purchase of a number of fine houses, amongst other things no doubt.

Last edited 3 years ago by Geoff H
Andrew Thompson
Andrew Thompson
3 years ago

I’m wondering if Speaker Nancy Pelosi would have the same thoughts had Geo’ Floyd held a loaded pistol to her heavily pregnant granddaughters belly whilst his friends ransacked her home?

Graff von Frankenheim
Graff von Frankenheim
3 years ago

How typical of our times: a career criminal choking on fentanyl and dying while being apprehended by the police becomes a worldwide martyr just because he happened to be black. Twenty years ago it wouldn’t make the news.

Brian Dorsley
Brian Dorsley
3 years ago

The Woke religion’s version of Jesus. It’s fast becoming a False Religion.

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
3 years ago
Reply to  Brian Dorsley

Perhaps it is poor old Mr Chauvin who has ended up as a latter day Christ?

John Standing
John Standing
3 years ago
Reply to  Brian Dorsley

Manifestly, no form of anti-racism, or any proxy for it, was ever anything other than false and the very opposite of its claimed humanity and compassion when it comes to its white victims.

zac chang
zac chang
3 years ago
Reply to  John Standing

Said a racist white guy…

Giulia Khawaja
Giulia Khawaja
3 years ago
Reply to  zac chang

Said a racist.

Kevin Henderson
Kevin Henderson
3 years ago

George Floyd is rapidly becoming the Horst Wessel of the Left. I believe he had some claim to being a musician, too.

Ralph Windsor
Ralph Windsor
3 years ago

So will we soon witness the flsgellants of Woke matching

David J
David J
3 years ago

No end to the pathetic liberal self-guilt in sight so far.
They need something to really worry about.

Ralph Windsor
Ralph Windsor
3 years ago
Reply to  David J

Like a pandemic, say. Oh, wait, how well did this Covid thing work?

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago
Reply to  David J

Well, there’s Covid-19, isn’t there?

Don Gaughan
Don Gaughan
3 years ago

The George Floyd mass media focus and liberal left woke race activists exploiting it to incite racist anger and their poltical agenda was a violation of a principle both left and right have stated for diverse peoples to live togther.
We do not unfairly smear an entire group for thr acts of the few bad ones.
This event has bern exploited by the left racist race activists to smear the entire police force and race.Only news where theres a white and then black ” victim” is shown and highlighted and fetishised, all other crimes ,murders, racism commited by the ” victims” groups are downplayed, unreported or absent, the liberal media taking events out of context to create a distorted truthless message to incite racist violence.
The racist hate and violence incited by the tyrannical intolerant left became very real for our family as a stranger from one the hyped ” victim” groups assaulted and repeatedly beat our daughter , causing concussions, saying “You think you are better than me!”
The harm damage violence and racist anger being incited by the distorted , racial scapegoating is real and deeply deliberstely inflicting unjust harms to people.
Humantity needs liberation from the demented, maliicious left woke progressive tyrant cult.

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago
Reply to  Don Gaughan

Shocking post about your daughter’s assault. I hope she recovered and her assailant was punished.

Vikram Sharma
Vikram Sharma
3 years ago

Look at this folks. It tells white people how to behave when in the presence of the fallen hero
https://twitter.com/MattFinnFNC/status/1384919393088548865/photo/1

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
3 years ago

George Floyd, America’s very own Horst Wessel

Ralph Windsor
Ralph Windsor
3 years ago

…but without the music..

Galeti Tavas
Galeti Tavas
3 years ago

Yea, well you know how that turned out.
The Guardian article you linked to had no comments allowed – they have become such P* s* ie s and will never let the public comment – only their tame few, and not even them if any controversy is possible.
This is not going to end well and I feel sorry for all decent people who are about to get caught up in this psychosis. My guess is today is worth a hundred thousand extra gun sales in USA.

Arnold Grutt
Arnold Grutt
3 years ago

I don’t understand the connection between Bakunin and Nietzsche. Nietzsche was neither an atheist nor an anarchist. He was a classical scholar, who regretted the change in human ethics and behaviour brought about by ‘Christianity’ and his projected belief schema has been shown to resemble German Lutheranism, to a degree. No surprise, as he was born as one.

Last edited 3 years ago by Arnold Grutt
Stewart Slater
Stewart Slater
3 years ago

I don’t think it is quite true to say that “White Fragility…offers no redemption or hope at all.” It offers the chance to feel superior to those who do not believe, and that’s not nothing…For those who are interested, I wrote a piece for Areo last year on how Intersectionality tries to function as a moral system, and how it fails – https://areomagazine.com/2020/07/21/intersectionality-a-cheaper-form-of-virtue/

john dann
john dann
3 years ago
Reply to  Stewart Slater

Thanks Stewart for the link to your article. It is inevitable, I suppose, that you and the author above evoke the concept of ‘good’ or morality. The author states that goodness and selflessness is ‘demanded’ of Muslims, that Abrahamic religions are based on self-sacrifice, with special reference to the Jesus figure’s apocryphal death. (This kind of saviour figure was rampant throughout the region, combining Greek and other myths into an amalgam of personal salvation religion.)
The author does not go on to say that Islam also demands that you get an education, learn to think for yourself and develop some independence of mind. While in the XII Century Spain’s Islamic territories had 17 universities to Europe’s two, this is no longer the case. Humanism has allowed, demanded, if you prefer, the enlightenment of the mind, while Islam is stuck on obedience to authority, to the petrified, immutable word. Religion may be premised on self sacrifice, but it will never willingly weaken itself for anyone, especially truth. Copernicus knew this, Galileo was stifled by it.
What we call goodness, or morality, or self sacrifice is readily apparent in Nature. The very structure of Nature is premised on sacrifice. If you live you must die and your death will nurture new life. Any animal or human family member know what sacrifice is. It’s for the benefit of others, the group. The more one can expand this natural characteristic to include the clan, or society, the better. But it can never be demanded religiously, or imposed dogmatically. It is a natural phenomenon which must self generate, evolve naturally.
Religious belief is, of course, not about self sacrifice. It is inherently selfish, since the end goal is self preservation, the eternal life of well deserved bliss. Abrahamic religions have cursed humanity with the notion that we are different from the rest of Nature, that we are masters of our own destiny and keepers of all other things. Nothing could be more demonstrative of all encompassing arrogance. Regrettably those who are ‘believers’ or have ‘faith’ can never get past this stumbling block and are unwilling to give up that (very natural) sense of self importance. (I talk to God, and He to me.) Humanity is clearly not ready to give up this security from uncertainty, or embrace a notion of collective interdependence with all.
George Floyd is being made a martyr. Martyrs are always declared after the fact, for the convenience of the message, be they Saint, suicide bomber or outcast.
There is not much self sacrifice in any of this. Floyd’s was unintentional, so is Chauvin’s. The police are acknowledging some wrong, but not enough to change anything. The oppressed communities want revenge, the politicians the limelight and power. And Benjamin Crump… well he might make a few million every single time the police kill someone.

William Blake
William Blake
3 years ago

Nancy Pelosi ? Yuk !! An awful woman.

Andrew Thompson
Andrew Thompson
3 years ago
Reply to  William Blake

‘Odious’ is the word I’d use

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago

I call her “rancid” and “raddled”. She disgusts me.

Angus J
Angus J
3 years ago

“Of course, the veneration of Floyd is indisputably Christian in flavour; Jesus himself was a criminal…”
Not according to the Biblical accounts. There was no crime under Roman law which he had broken. It was only the Jewish law against blasphemy which the religious authorities in Jerusalem believed him to have transgressed; but they could not implement the death penalty prescribed for that offence because only the Romans could execute someone. Even though Pilate had declared Jesus to be innocent of any crime, the religious authorities manipulated and blackmailed Pilate into having him executed, arguing that if Pilate let Jesus go he was ‘no friend of Caesar’. Luke’s Gospel chapter 23 and John’s Gospel chapters 18 & 19 are the sources for most of this.

kathleen carr
kathleen carr
3 years ago
Reply to  Angus J

Also the idea is to forgive the sinner but not the sin-and the sinner must want to be redeemed. You can forgive a teenager ( most things ) as its hoped they might ‘grow out of it’ , but George was almost fifty years old.

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago
Reply to  kathleen carr

Late developer?!

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago
Reply to  Angus J

Good post.

Tom Watson
Tom Watson
3 years ago

“The…movement had started in Italy…but over the decades had been taken up by the Germans, who made it far more extreme and violent, and also adding uniforms.”
I see what you did there.

john dann
john dann
3 years ago
Reply to  Tom Watson

Hard to find, but if you can find some older photos of the Massachusetts State Police uniform circa 19650-70 you’ll see an exact replica of a Nazi SS uniform. Pure coincidence I am sure.

herbwoodbury1949
herbwoodbury1949
3 years ago

Horrible essay. Poorly researched and written.

Floyd was NOT murdered, he )D’d on drugs, and the verdict is a travisty of justice.

Andrew Thompson
Andrew Thompson
3 years ago

Nancy Pelosi; odious woman

Paul Ansell
Paul Ansell
3 years ago

Is the author of this piece being tongue in cheek when he says, “George Floyd the icon will live on, a powerful symbol for the faithful as they strive to build a third age of racial equality.”
If I was a Black man and I had just been shot dead, I would not really care who shot me, a White cop or a Brother from the hood….dead is dead……anybody seen the statistics on shootings lately in NYC , Chicago etc……..ridiculous.
GF’s faithful are less concerned about equality than fear and the power that comes with that. Equality comes from mutual respect , not threats of violence, are you listening LeBron James, Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi………

Alan Thorpe
Alan Thorpe
3 years ago

Human behaviour in the past is difficult to understand and I have tended to put it down to general ignorance, but that no longer applies. There is also an enormous difference in the medieval economy to now and the rapid way in which news spreads round the world.
I think we should be more concerned about all events today, particular the completely fake climate crisis which is not supported by empirical evidence or physics. The same applies to the damaging polices that have been implemented to fight a not very dangerous virus.

Nikki Hayes
Nikki Hayes
3 years ago

The Flaggelants were the epitome of early “woke” – so proud they met stony silence when they came to England!

Stuart Y
Stuart Y
3 years ago
Reply to  Nikki Hayes

if only the “later woke” could illicit such a response from todays pumped up virtue signallers and the trouble makers in politics, most of the MSM and all of Social Meeja. Then the rest of us could get on with living our lives in peace, and helping those less fortunate than us of whatever hue in the manner we choose, within the law and with a moral compass.

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago

Excelent article. I would like to point out, however, that, alone of the Abrahamaic faiths, Islam’s self-sacrifice and selfesness does not extend to non-Muslims.
Judaism enjoins charity to the stranger, the widow and orphan because “you were once strangers in a strange land” (Exodus 22:21, Deuteronomy 10:19), and, for Christianity, Jesus Christ, when asked “who is my neighbour?” gives the example of the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37). There is no such equivalent in Islam. The zakat raised by Muslim charities, especially during Ramadan, is solely in aid of Muslims.

Janice Mermikli
Janice Mermikli
3 years ago

Whoops! “Excellent”…

Pierre Pendre
Pierre Pendre
3 years ago

I watched most of 13th on Netflix which presents the black grievance side of US racial history from slavery via lynching and segregation to the current war on drugs that has filled the prisons with hundreds of thousands of black underclass males.
It’s a case for the prosecution and deliberately makes no attempt at balance; no Thomas Sowell, or John McWhorter or Glenn Loury who don’t buy into the BLM version of black life in America.
It’s a straightforward account of white oppression of blacks throughout America’s history from witnesses like Angela Davis, Professor Henry Gates and former White House advisor (briefly) Van Jones.
Inadvertently, these three spokesman and others like them, because they are smart and articulate and speak like whites, show what blacks could achieve in America if they chose to assimilate and oppose the system from within – Angela Davis – rather that fight it by refusing to conform.
It requires a conscious effort of will to do what they did and 13th with its open bias explains why many blacks refuse to co-operate with a system they believe is fundamentally hostile to the black temperament forged in slavery and still vivid today. Another way of explaining the claims of police brutality would be black men shot while being deliberately arrogant towards white law (Michael Brown, Aaron Blake).
A balanced documentary would have blunted our understanding of what has driven the violent reaction to the deaths Trayvon Martin and George Floyd.
America after BLM and the inevitable lessening of today’s unsustainable race hysteria will be a different place because of them. Netflix documentaries are of variable quality but 13th did a remarkable job.

Robin Lambert
Robin Lambert
3 years ago

Wouldn’t it be fitting if ”George floyd” passing Fake $20 notes,had his face on US Treasury ones?..Sleepy Joe would

Harry Potter
Harry Potter
3 years ago

In China, engineers, scientists and soldiers are deemed national heroes. In the West, these roles are played by a drug addict with a criminal record who happened to be a black, and a 16-year-old Swedish girl who is obsessed in parroting leftist agenda.
The pathetic Western left remains narcissistically immersed in its own fabricated moral system, meanwhile the entire political elite of China is laughing its ass off on their social media.
China under Mao’ rule had a 30-year social disaster because the country was kidnapped by the communist ideology. But now, it’s the self-proclaimed enlightened and progressive West voluntarily marching towards its second medieval age of doom, while China has not even moved a single bullet.

Last edited 3 years ago by Harry Potter
idunno Meneither
idunno Meneither
3 years ago

Sorry Ed, Jesus Christ wasn’t a criminal. Pontius Pilate himself said ‘I find no fault in him’ (John 19:4), but the pharisees and chief priests called for his death – not because he was a criminal, but because he threatened their status quo. Your comparison of George Floyd with Jesus Christ is a desperate stretch of the imagination to make a fatuous point.

idunno Meneither
idunno Meneither
3 years ago

Sorry Ed, Jesus Christ wasn’t a criminal. Pontius Pilate himself said ‘I find no fault in him’ (John 19:4), but the pharisees and chief priests called for his death – not because he was a criminal, but because he threatened their status quo. Your comparison of George Floyd with Jesus Christ is a desperate stretch of the imagination to make a fatuous point.

Phil Vernon
Phil Vernon
3 years ago

“Our opponents”????

Mike Chaffin
Mike Chaffin
3 years ago

Curiously enough I wrote a poem about just this..

https://redpilluk.wordpress.com/2021/04/21/the-ages-rhyme/

ian.gordonbrown
ian.gordonbrown
3 years ago

I will just leave this here.
https://legaldictionary.net/second-degree-murder/
This implies the officer intentionally wanted to kill the man, who was high on drugs and in the process of resisting arrest.

Last Jacobin
Last Jacobin
3 years ago

Second degree murder may also refer to a death caused by an individual’s negligent or reckless conduct.
From your linked definition. I think you were a bit selective in your interpretation.

Steve Gwynne
Steve Gwynne
3 years ago

George Floyd the icon will live on, a powerful symbol for the faithful as they strive to build a third age of ‘despotic’ racial equality.

D Ward
D Ward
3 years ago

As I was reading your comment, the British Army came into my mind. No idea why.

qc9rg88c4v
qc9rg88c4v
3 years ago

Good article on a concerning trend though the concluding statement that the family have had their justice is a bit dismissive of the wide challenges in the US

Frederick B
Frederick B
3 years ago

It’s interesting that the portrait of Floyd in your photograph makes him appear wide-eyed and somehow “innocent”. But in the actual photos of him he looks the sort you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. Which, I wonder, is the truer picture?

Martin Butler
Martin Butler
3 years ago

The demonstrated vileness of religious gibberish will not be redeemed by constant verbal assaults from this sinister god-bothering bigot.

kbclara
kbclara
3 years ago

Sorry to contradict but it was much more than a month of “peaceful”protests.

mike otter
mike otter
3 years ago

Of the many things that don’t add up in this circus is the junky and his GF were given pills by the guy who refused to testify which the GF testified she thought she’d die after taking, and she thought it was meth/yabba or similar. So you’ve been a junky for a while and can’t tell a fix from a crank of speed? BS. BTW i think the cop murdered the wasteman, in the context of US/UK society I firmly agree that ACAB, but it does not have to be like this. We set up gangs of roided drug addled young men and call them “police” and it does not solve the problem. Maybe a minimum age for front line cops of say 40 would be a start? There are many other options – civil militia/civil guard, cops divided into 4 groups like Spain so there is always someone to police the police, governments stop importing coke, meth, badly made fentanyl/thorazine etc etc etc

Devin Watson
Devin Watson
3 years ago

Good humour in the essay despite the actual gravity of the topic. The Flaggellants being beaten in Rome was a good touch.
My personal favourite “religious cult taking over a city” story from history is that of Savonarola in Florence. It has a Bonfire of the Vanities episode, a peroid of folks walking around in white robes as self-appointed morality police, the rise of public resentment that built over time, and finally a Trial by Fire to prove Savonarola’s divine mandate… which he basically tried to call in sick for. I won’t ruin the ending for you!
The House of Medici by C. Hibbert handles the period very well.

Peter Mott
Peter Mott
3 years ago

I am reading Niall Ferguson and found the following quotation fro Voegelin:

The Nazis’ opponents also recognized the pseudo-religious character of the movement. As the Catholic exile Eric Voegelin put it, Nazism was ‘an ideology akin to Christian heresies of redemption in the here and now … fused with post-Enlightenment doctrines of social

Ferguson, Niall. The Square and the Tower (p. 224). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition. 

Ferguson describes the extraordinary way the Nazi creed spread through Germany. I am quite shocked.

bilko1690
bilko1690
3 years ago