The first step is to acknowledge that our words are powerful and can cause others pain. So, how do we change our perception of the world? This is especially true for those who are supposed to protect and serve all citizens. This is very much true for those who believe that black people are beneath white people and are a threat to the white person’s way of life. I see only through the filter of my story. No one has ever been angry at another human being. Byron Katie wrote, in Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life: If we want to change how we feel about the world, we need to change how we think about the world and the people who inhabit it. To paraphrase Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a filmmaker who relates to issues of equity and is the wife of Gavin Newsom, California’s Governor, “We need to change our culture, by changing our mindset that defines who we are where we resort to power, domination and aggression towards others, we instead need to relate to others by way of caring, collaboration and empathy.” What if your inner critic told you that you are not good enough? What if we feel emotionally empty and hopeless, or live with a sense of helplessness? What if we are afraid, insecure and filled with resentment, due to emotional and/or physical abuse?Įvery person who swears to protect and serve others needs to spend time reflecting on these questions, as part of a mandatory process of self-understanding, before they earn their badge. When we hear ‘love your neighbour as you would love yourself,’ what if we don’t love ourselves? Our Inner Critic is that voice we hear in our inner conversations with ourselves, who always finds fault with what we think, what we do and who we are as people. But what if your ‘inner critic’ is running your life? Love your neighbour as you would love yourself. Think for a moment: What if we, by contrast, were to treat others as we would want to be treated? This is a primary tenet in many religious traditions. When we see others as an object and a means to an end, rather than an end unto themselves, we cause pain and hurt, and we diminish ourselves and one another. The abuse of others is an act of hostility and is the opposite of love, compassion and kindness. The idea that some lives matter less, is at the root of what is wrong with the world.
There is no place for such behaviour in a civilized society. It touched our humanity, and we came together to protest this treatment of one of our fellow human beings. The reality of what happened finally became a reality for all to see and experience. There is/was no place to avoid or escape the reality of George Floyd’s murder by a white ‘police’ officer. In a commentary-” Welcome to the Great Awakening“-Van Jones of CNN suggested that the massive protests about the killing of George Floyd occurred, in part, because all of us-white, black, brown-saw and experienced the lynching, and it was profoundly real for the broader community of humanity. There is no escaping the reality of what each of us was seeing with our own eyes. We were looking straight into the eyes of a racist who was lynching a black man. He also seemed to have a cold-blooded disdain for the man he ultimately killed. My experience of the officer who had his knee on George Floyd’s neck was that he seemed to have an ‘I don’t care if you make a video of what I am doing to this non-person’ attitude. There are times when police officers are placed in situations where it is truly not possible to be in control, which only intensifies their sense of insecurity and fear and can cause them to overreact. There are police officers who are fearful of losing control in their interactions with the public. This is especially true if a police officer has racist inclinations and a disdain for those whom he or she is to protect and serve. Those who are abusive in their positions of authority are often insecure, and feel the need to ensure that they will not lose their position of dominance. It is a need to not feel helpless, powerless and at the mercy of someone else. The need for power over someone else is a control issue. What would cause those in power to abuse those who are in a subservient position? What would cause a white police officer to place his knee on George Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, and cause him to die?
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