It’s the first anniversary of the beginning of the largest protesting in the history of the world. The major catalyst of the unrest was the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 in the middle of a pandemic. George Floyd’s live on camera death sparked the largest protesting in the history of the world. Though it wasn’t the first controversial killing of a black person in America or anywhere else. But in 2020, it sparked a much wider series of global protests and riots which continued into 2021 in smaller segments. As of June 8, 2020 there were at least 19 deaths related to the protests.
Martin Luther King Jr famously said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
President Obama used it often – but it could do with a second part. Bear this in mind, that the arc of the moral universe does not bend on its own. It’s bent in the right direction of justice by those willing to push it. The protesters, campaigners and dissenters. It was their hands that forced the arch towards justice when the former police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of the second-degree murder of George Floyd. We cannot celebrate and take comfort in the verdict that was meted out without acknowledging the action outside the courtroom that secured it. Everyone knows it was the protestors demanding justice as how a guilty verdict was handed down.
But this is what some will do: claim the verdict to be a great victory, after denigrating and disparaging the means by which it was achieved. The protests in the wake of Floyd’s murder have been called the largest in US and global history. The protesting reached more than 50 countries. In the US, tens of millions of dollars were raised and invested in grassroots communities and advocacy in a diffuse, decentralized network that lobbied politicians and pushed through voter registration. It all made a deep impression on the public consciousness. Had not been for these protestors, Chauvin simply would not have been brought to trial on these charges, let alone been convicted, were it not for these protestors tireless efforts.
unholypursuit
The Novel: UnHoly Pursuit: Devil on my Trail 
We certainly had some demonstrations connected to this here but nothing like the anti-Iraq war demos or those anti-capitalism ones of a decade or so so ago 😦
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I knew the protest had spread to other countries but I hadn’t heard of the anti-Iraq war demos nor those anti-capitalism ones of a decade or so so ago. But I do not understand the demo about the Iraq War, I don’t record France sending troops into the Iraqi War. Maybe I’m mistaken for these things can become blurry as years pass.
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I don’t think we did send troops but that did not stop the demos 😉 My goodness, before covid hit, there were massive demonstrations here across the country every weekend; road closures and bad enough for the govt to shut down central Paris 😦 I guess, folk just like demonstrating here 😉
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My, I hadn’t realized there were that many protests in France.
It said that France is the Mother of America (USA). Maybe that’s whom the everyday Americans get the idea and notions of protesting for humane rights and civil liberties.
Remember, Frenchmen are very vocal in letting people know if they don’t like something or someone.
I guess they feel if their voices aren’t heard and heeded, they will pull out Madame Guillotine and let her do the talking, if people don’t get their meaning the first go-around. 😉
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Haha, yes. The yellow vests (the name of the protesters) will, I am sure, return once we get back to normal as the key issues that caused them to protest still remain 😦
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What was the key issues causing the The yellow vests to protest? I looked it up and it says:
The movement originated with French motorists from rural areas who had long commutes protesting against an increase in fuel taxes, wearing the yellow vests that, under a 2008 French law, all motorists are required to keep in their vehicles and to wear in case of emergency.
Death(s): 11 people, including 3 yellow vests,
Concessions given: : Cancellation of fuel tax
Goals: Increase in the French minimum wage; …
Caused by: Rise in crude oil prices in 2018;
Well, in America we move into the city or nearby subs to prevent long commutes.
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Hmm, well, fuel prices caused by tax rises may well have been a part but pension increases, social security reductions are all in the mix as well as the total disconnect between the political metropolitan elite and the rest of the country 😉
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About 10 years ago America had outlandish gas prices. I heard that back in the 70’s it was even worst. Living near New York city I have witnessed the lack of understanding between large cities and rural areas. Both need each other whether the large city realize it or not.
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Haha, your outlandish is likely at odds to ours where gas is about seven dollars a gallon 😉 but yes, your point is well made! :-
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Depending on where you lived, in many places about ten years ago the gas prices were as high as $4.00 to $8.00 dollars. Some places it went as high as $10.00.
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Woah, that is crazy pricing 😦
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Yes, those were very crazy prices. It lasted for nearly a year. Many people simply stayed home for they couldn’t afford to go to work. The inflated prices depended upon where you lived.
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I was kidding about the Guillotine thingy. I know it can not be used anymore. My Grandmother was French, that’s how I know they aren’t shy in telling you how they feel. 🙂
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Yes, thankfully she was permanently retired in ’77!
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“Convicted murderer Hamida Djandoubi became the last person to meet his end by the “National Razor” after he was executed by the guillotine in 1977. Still, the machine’s 189-year reign only officially came to an end in September 1981, when France abolished capital punishment for good.”
I didn’t know it was used for that long after the French Revolution. That’s a terrifying way of scaring righteous into people.
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It certainly was 😦
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I have noticed after almost 3.5 decades of news consumption that a disturbingly large number of people, however precious their souls, can be considered disposable, even to an otherwise democratic nation. When the young children of those people take notice of this, tragically, they’re vulnerable to begin perceiving themselves as disposable thus without value. When I say this, I primarily have in mind Black Americans (and Canadians, though perhaps to a lesser degree). But I know it happens worldwide. To me, it’s like a devaluation, albeit perhaps a subconscious one, of the daily civilian lives lost (“casualties”) in protractedly devastating war zones and sieges. They can eventually receive meagre column inches on the back page in the First World’s daily news.
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Yes, I have noticed that too. That America is moving backward and not forward. I hope the parents of these children instill in them that they are valuable, priceless to them no matter what anyone else says about them. Just as the parents of generations before stilled in their children.
I have heard older people comment that the violence against African Americans is back at the 1940’s. 50’s and 60’s level. It’s almost like the Civil Right Movement never took place.
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It’s up to the parent and the community that the child doesn’t see themselves as disposable.
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Also, one might want to consider atrocities as having ‘happened long ago’ and believe that (or therefore) humanity could/would not permit them to happen again, in much more modern times. I, however, doubt that is the way large-scale societies — let alone border-segregated, independent nations — necessarily behave as wholes.
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All atrocities haven’t happened long ago. Some atrocities are still happening today.
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That’s what I mean to imply. There are many people, themselves good-hearted, who want to believe that humankind, even as a collective, is inherently good and therefore will ultimately do the ‘right thing’. I don’t believe that, although I may be wrong.
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I believe there are numerous good people out there who need to stand up and speak their mind. The problem most good people have in standing up to evil people is that they have very little support or any at all.
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True.
On a more metaphysical level, I believe that the human soul may be inherently good, on its own; however, trapped within the physical body, notably the corruptible brain, oftentimes the soul’s purity may not be able to shine through.
It may be the case that the worst mass-atrocity-committing people throughout history had been thoroughly corrupted by a seriously flawed cerebral structure thus mind.
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Fgsjr2015, as much as you would like to defend these people there’s no legal, spiritual or psychological defense for the things they do. As a student of psychology I saw and worked with people who truly suffers from seriously flawed cerebral structure of the mind, most had chemical imbalances and this is “not” how they behaved. Sure, they committed crimes but they commit crimes against anyone. They don’t discriminate in who they harm.
Through constant evil deeds and evil thoughts the soul can become sick; which is the worst kind of sickness.
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I’m not defending anyone, or anything. It was just a philosophical thought on an obviously completely unverifiable spiritual topic. As such, it definitely was not intended to hit any nerve; if anything, I hoped it might induce further philosophical/spiritual thought by you or other readers, without any upset. I also am inclined to reactively condemn past (and future) atrocity-committing monsters as simply evil, but sometimes I decide to think a bit further than my reactive emotions.
In 1987, I learned from two Latter Day Saints missionaries that their church’s doctrine teaches that the biblical ‘lake of fire’ meant for the truly wicked actually represents an eternal spiritual burning of guilt over one’s corporeal misdeeds.
Accordingly, upon the atrocity-committing monster’s physical death, not only would he be 100 percent liberated from the anger and hate that blighted his physical life; his spirit or consciousness would be forced to exist with the unwanted awareness of the mindbogglingly immense amount of needless suffering he personally had caused.
This is what I had in mind with my post; not any defense or excuse for very bad people and/or acts.
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Oh, I see…I have not spoken with Mormons in depth enough times to know their teachings. But I do know a lot about the Christian Creed and that is not what it says. It doesnt’ say in the end whether it matter if not one feel guilty for what they have done. Hell doesn’t care if one feels guilty or not. That’s not demons’ concerns. Their job is to inflict eternal punishment regardless of rather one is sorry for their sins or not. According to the Christian Creed, the only way to prevent this is to let Jesus Christ stand in your place before the judgement of God.
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🙂 Relax, no one is upset here. I run the kind of blog where people are allowed to express their opinion, debate about issues. That’s how we all learn from each other. Learn each other’s way of living and their culture. We can never learn anything if we are not listening to anyone else. 😉
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I’m not defending anyone, or anything. It was just a philosophical thought on an obviously completely unverifiable spiritual topic. As such, it definitely was not intended to hit any nerve; if anything, I hoped it might induce further philosophical/spiritual thought by you or other readers, without any upset.
I also am inclined to reactively condemn past (and future) atrocity-committing monsters as simply evil, but sometimes I decide to think a bit further than my reactive emotions.
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No, I am not upset at all. With me, you didn’t hit any nerves. It just that I have heard that explanation before.
Learn to carefully observe and you will ‘see’ what you say that is an obviously completely unverifiable spiritual issue. If actions aren’t done under duress or utterly, immature ignorance, then they are the fruit of the doer’s soul.
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The concept of an afterlife ‘Hell’ has long inspired much thought (and a short story, https://wordpress.com/post/fgsjrfiction.wordpress.com/166) by me on what it, if anything, truly represents. That’s largely what I meant by “a philosophical thought on an obviously completely unverifiable spiritual topic.” Being spiritual thus completely unverifiable (except perhaps to now-living people who’ve experienced actual death), I mistakenly decided it would be a safe comment.
Though not an attempt at diversion/distraction from inexcusable morbidity-level racism, my post, or its location on your forum, may have seemed to be such.
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I commence your effort to get the word out about the social ills occurring around the world. I understand you are posting the same post on different sites. Perhaps if you altered them to fit that particular site the owner wouldn’t mind the post. There is another Frank Sterle Jr. So I would try to distinguish myself from him.
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I’ve found that website operators/moderators often delete posts that may alienate the publication’s regular bread-and-butter click-economy posters if allowed to continue for very long. Maybe it’s the reality of the growing corporate digital-media world.
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That’s the case with all blogs, website operators/moderators, or commentary columns. All have a theme which their customer, visitors, or patrons expect from them. A topic the visitors come there [to the site] to read or learn he news on a specific subject. They visit that site to learn from it regarding a particular subject matter and all posts that do not align with the subject matter themed for the site are usually deleted.
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Where did you see this other Frank Sterle Jr.? I have the feeling it is me.
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It’s listed in google. That’s how I found your other posts.
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He must be me, then. Thanx.
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I think so too. 🙂
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I’m not defending anyone, or anything. It was just a philosophical thought on an obviously completely unverifiable spiritual topic.
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Thank you for your comments. I know that you weren’t intentionally defending it, but you were and didn’t realize that you were. That’s why it is important that people have open conversations about this issue so that people will know when they are defending it. Which is often times a repeating of something said before.
Explaining the scope of an explanation given is part of educating people about racism. This is where those who have observed it or lived it get a chance to tell others what they have witnessed or have lived through.
You see much of what you said has been said and given before for centuries as to why those who hate the black race so much feel the way they do. While these false explanations are being given more and more atrocities are being committed. The problem is that no one is being held accountable as to why they keep happening.
What you wrote was much like many people who has been taught as a certain explanation explaining the many different reason as to why their hatred toward the black race is so great.
Every explanation is given under the sun except outright admitting that people who deliberately hurt others solely based on the color of their skin are just plain ole evil. That’s not the polite thing to say, but it’s the truth. They made themselves evil incarnated in a human form.
Understanding it is rather easy. It can be verified. It’s not unverifiable at all. All one need to do is closely observe racist behavior and you see for yourself that it is work of a sick soul which doesn’t want to change.
For the kind of change needed to occur to end racism people will have to want it to occur. It doesn’t happen on it own.
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Perhaps due to terminology and being oddly posted as a Reply to some non-directly-related dialogue at this site, however very much I agree with it, my post(s) were perceived as diversion or distraction from the serious topic of racism. It/they were not at all intended as such. As with my phraseology, “a philosophical thought on an obviously completely unverifiable spiritual topic,” my post(s) was/were misinterpreted. Perhaps I should have known better than to get into the metaphysical/spiritual at this article, but that’s all it was.
When the anti-East-Asian violence became brazenly overt, I immediately began writing and posting anywhere that would allow my condemnations. And I’ve done, and will continue to do, the same in regards to anti-Black racism, though my efforts were intensified by the suffocation of George Floyd by those who are actually paid to PROTECT ALL human beings in their service jurisdiction(s).
Mind you, I worded my comments in a manner meant to be sustained by newspaper and website moderators/editors; but they, unmistakably, were criticisms. And some sites did not welcome them. Ironically, other posters accused me of thinking/being that which is basically opposite of what you accuse me of.
If you’re willing to discover something that may run contrary to what you believe I am, I leave a few links to newspaper websites’ Letters sections, a tiny sample of what I’ve publicly stated (under the name Frank Sterle Jr.) in so very many news-related publication forums https://issuu.com/merritt-herald/docs/april_22_-_2021_full_document // http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/ny-letter-april-17-20210417-neq25arwbjac3ex3clhuo6ohpu-story.html // http://www.issuu.com/merritt-herald/docs/june_3_2021_full_document_ // http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/commentary/letters-to-the-editor/2021/05/13/too-many-people-will-find-a-reason-to-despise-others/ // http://www.clearwatertimes.com/letters/racially-motivated-incidents-on-the-rise-in-b-c/ // http://www.clearwatertimes.com/letters/people-treated-as-though-theyre-disposable/amp/
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Thanks for providing your posts. After perusing the news posts I see now that your post is written in format for a newspaper. I hope you continues your effort to get the word out. Online, getting the word out can be very difficult. But keep trying. The victims of these crimes need someone to tell their stories.
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I wish there was a way to end all this needless suffering.
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John, I do too. But unfortunately working for justice and foraging for peace is a never ending task.
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True, it was the largest protest ever in the history of humanity. But it’s sad so many other families face the same loss and we never hear of it.
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This is the first one ever caught live on camera is what sparked a world wide protest. You are right, sadly, there are so many other families who faced the same loss and we never hear of it.
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I think the nation was very tired of the same as usual. Kill someone. We mourn a while, bury the person, and then things go back to normal. Rinse and repeat.
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Boone, I think everyone was so sick of the unnecessary loss of life. Life having no value.
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