Talking about race is uncomfortable for whites.  It is painful for Blacks.  There is a world of difference between discomfort and pain.  Up until the heinous murder of George Floyd by ##### which was captured for the world to see in a viral video no one could have imagined that discussion about race would be a national dialogue.

Let me stop right here and say that I have not watched the video only clips.  I lack the strength to do so.  I have two sons and two grandsons, nephews and cousins, all of whom are young/very young Black men.  Anyone of which could have been and may yet be murdered like George Floyd.  I feel that I should have watched it and I am ashamed that I lacked the courage to watch It.  If George Floyd lived, and died in, those 8 minutes, I should be able to bear witness to his life and death in those 8 minutes.

There is a long list of unarmed Black men and women who were murdered by police.  Michael Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, Riah Milton, Oluwatoyin Salah, Marielle Franco, Tseshego Fatso Pule, Christine Ricketts, Bobby Jean Graham, Attatianna Jefferson,  Stephon Clark, Ara Rosa, and many, many more.  Black Lives Matter is a good place to learn their names and read their stories. I also liked this interactive page here.   But for every known murder of a Black person by police how many are there that are not recorded, not reported and therefore are only known to the murderers? And so I come back to the rise of racism and the impact of George Floyd ‘s death.

I do not believe that the increase in police brutality and murder of Blacks and Donald’s Trump’s election is just happenstance.  Politicians are being elected not in spite of the fact that they are racist but because they are racist.  Trump’s election signaled that racism is not just tolerated but encouraged.  To be sure, Trump did not invent racism but he made it mainstream.

It began with birtherism but did not stop there.  He followed up with his  “good people” statement about white supremacists marching in Charlottesville, brutal immigration policies, frequent use of his law and order dog whistle, and called predominantly Black and brown nations sh*thole countries.  He villainized Mexicans, denied that systemic racism exists, and refused to provide impactful assistance to Puerto Rico after hurricane ———- and ———.  He defended confederate statutes and did not and still does not condemn or ban the confederate flag at his rallies. All of which is a message.  The message:  It is right to be racist.  The white race is at war with the other races to preserve the “American” way of life.  Prosecuting hate crimes and condemning hate speech is not something he or the Justice Department will do.  The rise of racism will continue so long as Trump is President.