Juno News - We can denounce the killing without the anarchy

00:00:00.000 I'd like to chat with you for a few minutes on a few observations I have about the protests,

00:00:09.360 the riots, the violence that are engulfing a number of cities in the United States,

00:00:13.680 and a couple here in Canada, as we see solidarity protests spring up. My comments focus largely on

00:00:19.580 what I would call the inertia of narrative, how there are certain individuals in the media,

00:00:24.860 activists, and so forth, who take a story and they go, I'm gonna make it fit this mold. I'm gonna make

00:00:31.060 it head in this direction. I think a lot of the elements to this story are almost identical to

00:00:36.600 the 1992 Rodney King LA race riots, and it's interesting that we have that script in our head

00:00:43.100 about how these things play out, and we almost expect now things to go along those lines, and you

00:00:48.340 hear the same arguments, the same rationales from both sides, the same sort of debate unfolding,

00:00:54.280 and it's unfortunate. I don't think it had to be that way. It doesn't have to be that way,

00:00:58.840 and I don't think that's the correct case, because when you see this video of George Floyd,

00:01:03.180 now there are some videos that people go and protest about. You look at the video and you go,

00:01:06.760 I don't know, it's unclear what's going on. There's clearly mistakes on both sides. They said this guy

00:01:11.280 had or didn't have a gun, and you go, I don't know. And me, I never really write about those

00:01:15.180 things broadcast on them, because it's just unclear. You don't have the full facts. This situation, well,

00:01:20.300 I guess you don't have the full facts, but you look at it and you go, this is not good. Certainly

00:01:26.080 seems like this should not have happened, and this man should not have wound up dead at the end of

00:01:31.120 it. So this is a bad situation, and people are right to be frustrated about it, to be outraged

00:01:35.920 about it. I also don't like the disproportionality of it, by which I mean, by which I mean, the guy goes

00:01:42.380 into a store, and he's a little bit drunk, I guess, allegedly, he's a little drunk, and then he has a

00:01:47.500 $20 bill to pay, but it's a counterfeit $20 bill. And then all of this suddenly transpires at the end

00:01:52.980 of it. Look, I'd understand if he had hostages, it was some guy doing a terror attack, but I don't

00:01:57.720 know. This does not fit at all. It reminds me, actually, of one of the incidents that the Black 1.00

00:02:04.040 Lives Matter movement was frustrated about a couple of years ago, Eric Garner. This was a gentleman who

00:02:08.500 was just standing at the side of the road, and he was selling cigarettes, reselling them. So he bought a

00:02:14.040 pack, and then he would sell individual smokes, which, okay, I guess that's against the law in

00:02:18.980 that state, and they don't want to do it. But they brought in a bunch of officers, and they did a

00:02:22.560 chokehold, and then the guy's dead at the end. You go, excuse me? Like, I know right here in Toronto

00:02:26.920 where I'm at, if I call and say there's been a property crime against me, they're not going to show

00:02:32.120 up. You know, cops don't even police regular things anymore. So I'm kind of like, why were they even

00:02:37.820 policing the Eric Garner situation, the George Floyd situation, right now anyway, let alone so

00:02:43.860 heavily handed policing them that you find these two guys wind up dead at the end of it. I think

00:02:49.980 all citizens are right to say, we got a problem with this right here, because, you know, the police,

00:02:56.080 they work for us, they answer to us. So by all means, make your voice heard. And I would like to

00:03:00.980 leave it at that. I would like to say that I don't like this George Floyd incident, and there needs to

00:03:04.860 be justice, because this was not right. But then we have the problem that people are now looting,

00:03:10.820 they're being violent, burning down a police station. So then we all, when we're talking about

00:03:15.120 this issue, have to go, yes, I'm, I'm frustrated with that killing of that man. It shouldn't have

00:03:18.740 happened. But hold on, let's now talk about the many, many more hundreds, thousands of crimes

00:03:24.460 that have transpired in America in the past couple of days that are supposedly justified by all of this.

00:03:31.460 And this is where things get very strange. You see a lot of the mantras are stop killing us,

00:03:37.760 and police are killing us and so forth, referring to black Americans, African Americans saying,

00:03:43.060 don't kill us. Well, you look at the facts, the statistics on the ground, and about every year

00:03:48.480 in the United States, there are about 250, 300 black people who are killed by police. And then there's

00:03:55.520 about 400 to 500 white people who are killed by police. So more white people are killed by police

00:04:02.420 every year than black people. A lot of people probably wouldn't know that statistic. Now,

00:04:06.840 of course, the caveat is when you adjust for population, because there's a lot more white

00:04:10.860 people in the U.S. than black people, you realize that actually black people technically have a three

00:04:16.360 times more likelihood of being killed by police. Now, every police murder of a person is unfortunate,

00:04:23.780 unless, you know, some of them, you don't know all the stories. I mean, there are times when a person

00:04:27.400 has a gun. They're out there, they're, you know, they're being the bad guy, and the police have to

00:04:31.840 kill them to stop them from doing their bad guy thing. And we accept that. There are also cases

00:04:37.180 when we look and we go, I don't accept that, like George Floyd, like Eric Garner, and like a number of

00:04:41.880 stories that have involved Caucasian people who have been killed by police that do not get amplified by

00:04:47.540 the media and do not cause protest movements, even though these are very questionable circumstances

00:04:52.840 as well. So I think it's fair to say one is too many. When someone was killed by the police or

00:04:58.040 wrongly killed by the police, it's certainly fair to say one is too many. But also, when you're looking

00:05:02.700 at a country of 340 million people, and you're talking about 250 people, 400 people killed a year

00:05:10.260 by police, it's also not a large number of people. So this police stop killing us, well,

00:05:17.380 there's not large numbers there. So one has to wonder, why are people endorsing the mass looting

00:05:25.600 and violence that are going on saying, well, you know, people are frustrated. They've been seeing

00:05:29.060 this for years. They've been seeing people killed for years. Yes, they have. And one is too many.

00:05:33.940 But it's not like it's open season out there, and every cop out there is gunning down several people

00:05:40.140 a month. So the narrative plays a major role in this. And this is what I mean by the inertia of

00:05:45.420 narrative, that people kind of are familiar with how they think it should be and how they want it

00:05:50.420 to be. They lock into their roles, and they move forward, and they roll. And then you've got these

00:05:55.740 two camps. Well, you've got a bunch of camps, but you've got people who are basically saying, yes,

00:05:59.980 this looting is justified. You have to listen to these people's concerns. And others saying, no,

00:06:03.940 there's no justification. Bring in the cops, and let's shut this all down. And it's unfortunate,

00:06:08.860 because as I said at the beginning, the George Floyd killing, not a good thing at all. And people of 1.00

00:06:13.540 all walks of life should be saying, we demand more for police who are public servants, who are paid

00:06:18.920 by our tax dollars, and they answer, and they report to us. And yes, you should be holding them

00:06:24.160 to account. But unfortunately, that opportunity that could have been unifying has been lost now,

00:06:29.140 because the narrative is, for whatever reason, endorsing this mass carnage that is happening

00:06:34.920 all across the United States in these various cities. It's very unfortunate, and it didn't have to be

00:06:39.980 that way.

Juno News - June 01, 2020

We can denounce the killing without the anarchy

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