The late George Floyd is memorialized in this mural in Houston’s Third Ward community (Photo Credit: Regal Media Group/Todd A. Smith)
After the murder of George Floyd and the tragic death of Breonna Taylor, among others, America had a come-to-Jesus moment.
People of all races, ethnicities, and nationalities began to protest against police brutality and the countless killings of unarmed African Americans.
The Black Lives Matter movement might have even played an instrumental role in the election of former President Joe Biden in 2020.
However, leading up to President Donald Trump’s re-election, the 45th and 47thpresident vowed to support the blue and so-called law and order.
One of President Trump’s key campaign issues was to give police full immunity when it came to killing people.
While full police immunity has not yet come to fruition, Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) is ending police reform agreements in Minneapolis and Louisville and halting investigations into police departments in major U.S. cities.
CNN reported, “The Trump administration is moving to dismiss federal oversight agreements in Louisville and Minneapolis reached following the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor and police killing of George Floyd, and dropping investigations into several major U.S. police departments.
“The move, announced by the head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, reflects the administration’s opposition to agreements that require reforms of police departments where the DOJ found a pattern of misconduct.
“The agreements, called consent decrees, are approved by a federal judge and are used as a monitoring system for police department reform when an investigation finds that it is needed.”
In a statement, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said, “Overbroad police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities where it belongs, turning that power over to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda.”
Despite Trump’s efforts to back the blue, many critics have labeled his treatment of police as hypocritical because he seemingly supports police officers when they kill unarmed African-Americans while pardoning many of his supporters who assaulted police officers on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to overthrow American democracy and still an election from former President Joe Biden.
The Trump administration even agreed to pay the estate of Jan. 6 insurrectionist Ashli Babbitt $5 million in a wrongful death lawsuit.
The insurrectionist died after a Capitol police officer shot her while she tried to overthrow the United States government.
Awarding Babitt’s family millions of dollars seems to contradict Trump’s pledge to give police officers full immunity.
But on Wednesday, the Justice Department asked Minnesota and Kentucky to dismiss consent decrees agreed upon with Minneapolis and Louisville to address police brutality, particularly when it pertains to African-American victims.
The DOJ said, “After an extensive review by current Department of Justice and Civil Rights Division leadership, the United States no longer believes that the proposed consent decree would be in the public interest.”
After Floyd’s murder, many Americans, both African-Americans and White Americans, began to engage in uncomfortable conversations about systemic racism and police brutality.
On May 25 at The Church Without Walls in Houston, Rev. Al Sharpton said that at some marches protesting police brutality against Black and Brown Americans, White protestors outnumbered protestors of color.
Many police departments began recruiting potential officers from minority communities.
And many veteran police officers began treating minority communities with more empathy.
But the momentum created by the Black Lives Matter movement led to the “Back the Blue” or the Blue Lives Matter movement.
Furthermore, many conservative politicians began to campaign against the so-called “woke” movement, which began to wake people up to the realities of systemic racism and oppression in America.
In the five years since Floyd’s murder, conservative school board members have begun whitewashing African-American history.
In some cases, they are totally erasing African-American history by removing numerous books from school libraries.
Many have done so because teaching about racism and actual American history upsets some White people.
Trump’s administration caused an uproar when many historical African-American figures like Jackie Robinson and Medgar Evers had their government website profiles removed to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
Furthermore, the Trump administration has blamed DEI for many things that they do not like about America.
The stop-woke movement has caused many White Americans to think they are the ones oppressed in this country rather than the ones perpetuating the oppression, historically.
According to many, rolling back DEI and police reform efforts is like rolling back civil rights for Black Americans after many in the Black community gained political and economic power during the Reconstruction era.
That discrimination, known as Jim Crow laws, lasted for 100 years, when the Civil Rights Movement won back many God-given rights for African-Americans in 1964 and 1965.
Likewise, the progress made after the murder of Floyd and Taylor has led to a backlash from many on the White conservative right.
But for a moment in 2020, it seemed like America had found the light in a dark and racist historic tunnel that it had never emerged from.
Houston Chronicle columnist Joy Sewing wrote, “Five years later, it’s a much different place. We are witnessing our nation’s leaders amass power using overt racism and fear as a means to get there. The hate that lurked in our shadows is now in full view. What I now understand is that we cannot disentangle this darkness from our cultural consciousness. It’s in our roots.”
However, many African-Americans believe they have fight and perseverance in their roots.
On the fifth anniversary of his brother’s murder, Floyd’s brother Philonise Floyd vowed to never give up and continue fighting for the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
