Dear Friends, Members, and Community,
Some people in this country are relieved to think that justice may be served in the death of George Floyd. The three additional men who stood by and/or helped restrain Mr. Floyd have been charged in his murder. I refuse to use their names or even look them up because I don’t want to give them credit for being mistaken as human. I also refuse to call them policemen or former policemen. They do not deserve to be associated with the law enforcement profession. Please do not confuse the respect I show for humankind and police work with inner peace. I am furious with those men, police officers who protect and side with their kind, politicians who do nothing, and the list goes on and on. The list goes back to the founding of this country.
I am a 62-year-old African American man in America, and I have never seen what has transpired since May 25. No, I am not talking about the protesting, looting, and rioting. Those events seem to be of more concern to some people. In no way do I approve of the destruction of private or public property, but if given a choice I would rather see a thousand buildings burn to the ground, my own included, than see someone beg for their life as it is slowly drained away. To be honest, I can never watch the entire video. It is too much. It has made me reflect on how many times I, my sons, brothers, friends, and colleagues might have been twenty dollars away from such a death.
I was seventeen and in high school, worked full-time in a gas station, and a musician. After work some friends and I were going to play some music at someone’s house. I had picked up one friend, then pulled in front of another friend’s house a few blocks away when two beat up cars blocked me in from the front and rear. I honestly thought we were being robbed until men, claiming to be police, jumped out screaming at us with guns drawn. My head was slammed against the roof of the car as a large caliber gun was placed against my head. It was 50 years ago, and I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was a case of mistaken identity. They let me go after they checked my license. But what if the gun had discharged while nuzzled against my head. Would I have been made out to be some delinquent seventeen-year-old gangster? Who knows but worse things have happened.
There were other incidents after that, but I am going to jump to the one that infuriated me the most. It was the early nineties and my mother had never been to New York. So, we drove from Detroit to New York for a day or two. On our way back to Detroit, I had just crossed the New York State line into New Jersey when a state police officer pulled me over for absolutely nothing. His excuse for pulling me over was that I was not driving straight. He informed me that he wanted to search the car. I got further upset when he told me he wanted to search the car for drugs because the highway was a known drug route.
I was in my middle thirties and my mother was in her sixties. I said to him, man I have my mother in the car, what kind of person do you think I am? At that moment I felt like a ninety-year-old slave who couldn’t say anything about his young master still calling him boy. For a moment I seriously considered mixing it up with him because I was so offended. Presently, there are a lot of people who haven’t been in the world as long as I have, and they appear to be fed up also. So, until the powers that be listen up and institute police reforms the brutality will continue, and so will the consequences.
These sentiments are not official statements of the Museum of Social Justice. These are my personal reflections after the murder of George Floyd and other victims of police brutality.
Sincerely,
Keith Rice
Some people in this country are relieved to think that justice may be served in the death of George Floyd. The three additional men who stood by and/or helped restrain Mr. Floyd have been charged in his murder. I refuse to use their names or even look them up because I don’t want to give them credit for being mistaken as human. I also refuse to call them policemen or former policemen. They do not deserve to be associated with the law enforcement profession. Please do not confuse the respect I show for humankind and police work with inner peace. I am furious with those men, police officers who protect and side with their kind, politicians who do nothing, and the list goes on and on. The list goes back to the founding of this country.
I am a 62-year-old African American man in America, and I have never seen what has transpired since May 25. No, I am not talking about the protesting, looting, and rioting. Those events seem to be of more concern to some people. In no way do I approve of the destruction of private or public property, but if given a choice I would rather see a thousand buildings burn to the ground, my own included, than see someone beg for their life as it is slowly drained away. To be honest, I can never watch the entire video. It is too much. It has made me reflect on how many times I, my sons, brothers, friends, and colleagues might have been twenty dollars away from such a death.
I was seventeen and in high school, worked full-time in a gas station, and a musician. After work some friends and I were going to play some music at someone’s house. I had picked up one friend, then pulled in front of another friend’s house a few blocks away when two beat up cars blocked me in from the front and rear. I honestly thought we were being robbed until men, claiming to be police, jumped out screaming at us with guns drawn. My head was slammed against the roof of the car as a large caliber gun was placed against my head. It was 50 years ago, and I can remember it like it was yesterday. It was a case of mistaken identity. They let me go after they checked my license. But what if the gun had discharged while nuzzled against my head. Would I have been made out to be some delinquent seventeen-year-old gangster? Who knows but worse things have happened.
There were other incidents after that, but I am going to jump to the one that infuriated me the most. It was the early nineties and my mother had never been to New York. So, we drove from Detroit to New York for a day or two. On our way back to Detroit, I had just crossed the New York State line into New Jersey when a state police officer pulled me over for absolutely nothing. His excuse for pulling me over was that I was not driving straight. He informed me that he wanted to search the car. I got further upset when he told me he wanted to search the car for drugs because the highway was a known drug route.
I was in my middle thirties and my mother was in her sixties. I said to him, man I have my mother in the car, what kind of person do you think I am? At that moment I felt like a ninety-year-old slave who couldn’t say anything about his young master still calling him boy. For a moment I seriously considered mixing it up with him because I was so offended. Presently, there are a lot of people who haven’t been in the world as long as I have, and they appear to be fed up also. So, until the powers that be listen up and institute police reforms the brutality will continue, and so will the consequences.
These sentiments are not official statements of the Museum of Social Justice. These are my personal reflections after the murder of George Floyd and other victims of police brutality.
Sincerely,
Keith Rice