When the police in the Rodney King case were found not guilty of violence, the rioters were concerned with racism in the System.
While I’m well aware of policing biases, I was more disturbed that each blow to Mr. King was within police policy.
This caused me to pay attention to policing, police abuse, and police policy for many years and talk about it with friends in my home state of Minnesota.
I could never generate much interest.
This all changed in 2014 following Ferguson. Whenever there was a police incident, thousands of people were showing up on the street chanting and marching.
In Nov. 2015, during the 4th Precinct Takeover I witnessed some things:
- Black Lives Matter was mostly white women.
- Media was being blocked from the event, giving the public a very distorted view.
- White women protestors throwing rocks and bottles were not Black or Peaceful.
- Emotion was much more important than facts or policy.
- Groupthink online was enforced that only Black people were killed by police.
- Local media ran headlines that gave the impression Black people were to blame.
“They are eventually going to kill a white woman, they feel too safe around police,” I said to an independent media producer at the time. Within two years, as I was concluding my first series, this prediction came true.
Jewel Eldora
The most important thing I noticed while watching events unfold on live streams, news, and twitter hashtags was how messaging would spread from Minneapolis throughout a global network. Another thing I noticed was how viciously the groupthink was enforced. “All Lives Matter, is the same as saying White Power 2016,” one Women’s and Gender Studies Professor scolded me.
This network became a distraction from police policy for me over the next couple of years as I watched this network grow and grow in numbers and intensity over the next couple of years.
On Memorial Day, 2020 the viral video of George Floyd’s death sparked outrage in these US Cities and other cities around the world.
