George Floyd, Revolutions, and the Path to Justice

There is a great controversy now going on in the world between the despotic and the republican principle. —Harriet Beecher Stowe¹

Like most people I know, I watched videos of the events that led to George Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020, in shock, horror, and disgust. After a merchant called police reporting that Floyd used a counterfeit $20 bill in his store, Minneapolis cops cuffed Floyd and forced him into the back of their SUV. When Floyd protested that he was claustrophobic and couldn’t remain in the vehicle, officer Derek Chauvin removed him and, with the help of other officers, pinned him facedown on the ground with his knee on Floyd’s neck. He held him there for eight minutes and forty-six seconds, even as Floyd, unresisting, repeatedly cried out that he could not breathe—even after Floyd went unconscious and bystanders shouted to the cops that Floyd appeared to be dying or was already dead.

Minneapolis Police Department rules stipulate that officers may use neck restraints such as that used by Chauvin only when a subject “is exhibiting active aggression” or when officers have reason to fear for their lives.² Tall, muscular, and distressed as Floyd was, no footage or reports that I’ve seen indicate that he posed a threat to anyone’s life. Chauvin, aided by the other officers, appears to have used excessive force in the extreme. This is a moral atrocity, and moral outrage is a proper response. But, righteous as that emotion is, it is still an emotion, and emotions are not proper guides to action. If we want justice for George Floyd, we can’t let our rage cloud our thinking about what happened or how to respond.

Among other things, what videos show is one individual kneeling on the neck of another.³ The first is white; the second, black. What is not shown is any officer hurling racial epithets or otherwise revealing bigoted views. If it comes to light that Chauvin had racist motives, he will justly be damned as all the more vile. Few things are more barbaric than judging a person not on his character but on the color of his skin—let alone initiating force against him on that basis.

However, to date, no evidence that I’m aware of warrants the conclusion that Chauvin acted on racist motives. When one individual assaults another and the two are of different races, that fact alone doesn’t tell us anything about the aggressor’s motives. To impute racism to a white man who assaults a black man, or vice versa, on nothing but observations about skin color is to judge him on the color of his skin. It’s just the other side of the same racist coin.

Jumping to such a conclusion ignores a universe of other possible motives. For instance, in this case, it ignores the possibility that Chauvin developed some animosity toward Floyd unrelated to race when the two crossed paths at the El Nuevo night club, where both worked security.⁴ It also ignores the possibility that Chauvin is simply a sociopath who couldn’t care less about a human life, regardless of color.

Further, no statistics about law enforcement in America—no matter how conclusively they demonstrate trends—can tell us anything about the particulars of a given case.

As it happens, the statistics cited in support of the claim of systemic police persecution of black people don’t clearly indicate any such persecution. I’m no statistician, and statistics are notorious for being easy to contort in support of this or that conclusion. But the Washington Post’s police shootings database unequivocally shows that, in absolute numbers, cops kill fewer black people than they do white people.⁵

The Post and others point out that, adjusted for relative percentages of the population, black people are more likely than white people to be killed by cops; black people make up about 13.4 percent of the population but account for roughly 24 percent of those killed by police. However, when we compare the number of police encounters with the number of fatalities, black people fare far better than white people. Also, black people commit far more violent crimes than any other racial group. As a 2016 Washington Post article put it,

According to that data, out of all violent crimes in which someone was charged, black Americans were charged with 62 percent of robberies, 57 percent of murders and 45 percent of assaults in the country’s 75 biggest counties—despite the fact that black Americans made up just 15 percent of the population in those places.⁶

Even if it were true that police are statistically more likely to persecute black people, this fact would not be grounds for concluding that a particular officer acted on racist motives. Yet this is exactly what many have concluded.

On the other hand, we don’t need to crunch numbers to know that Floyd was the victim of egregious misconduct on the part of several officers. Of course, in accordance with justice and American law, they must be treated as innocent until proven guilty. And they will have their day in court. Insofar as peaceful, non-rights-violating protestors demand this, they command the moral high ground. However, some seem to be under the impression that we can achieve justice for Floyd and other victims of senseless violence by perpetrating yet more senseless violence.

After a week of rioting in Minnesota’s Twin Cities, some 530 businesses reported damages totaling at least $55 million. At least 67 of them have been declared total losses.⁷ What’s more, despite the narrative that rioters are seeking justice for black Americans, they attacked many businesses owned by black people, including a sports bar that was slated to hold its grand opening later this month. Korboi Balla, a Minneapolis firefighter, invested his life savings in the bar. This was his dream business and his future. After rioters burned it to the ground on May 28, he said, “To find out that the countless hours, hard work, late nights away from my kids, and family had all been for nothing was soul-shattering. It is not the material things, more so the time that cannot be reclaimed.”⁸ In Boston, another black entrepreneur, Dr. Everett Sabree, watched on television as looters plundered stores close to his Dartmouth Street Vision Center, which sustained $30,000 worth of damage and theft.⁹ His son Jamil, who has worked at his father’s business for a decade, told reporters, “It’s frustrating to think that a movement that’s meant to protect and help me, is adversely affecting me and my father.” The scene is the same in major cities throughout the country.

Some have tried to justify this mayhem by likening it to the Civil War and the American Revolution. For instance, Wellesley College professor Kellie Carter Jackson writes, “Since the beginning of this country, riots and violent rhetoric have been markers of patriotism. When our Founding Fathers fought for independence, violence was the clarion call.” Yet, she says, seemingly convinced that she’s pointing out hypocrisy, “the language used to refer to protesters has included looters, thugs, and even claims that they are un-American.”¹⁰ In her view, the rioters are the American revolutionaries of a new age, and “A revolution in today’s terms would mean that these nationwide rebellions lead to black people being able to access and exercise the fullness of their freedom and humanity.”¹¹

In truth, the clarion call of the American Revolution was not violence but the principle of individual rights, a concept conspicuously absent from Jackson’s argument—though it is the foundation of free and civil society and the only thing that enables people “to access and exercise the fullness of their freedom and humanity.” In both the revolution and the Civil War, Americans used violence in self-defense against aggressors who contradictorily declared a “right” to violate people’s rights.

What is un-American about the riots is the blatant disregard for rights, a disregard shared by law-enforcement officials who use excessive force and those who loot or torch people’s property and businesses. Legitimate revolts are not prosecuted against innocent bystanders. They are not targeted at people such as Balla, Sabree, or innocent business owners of any race. What sense would it have made if, after the British tightened their grip on the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Bostonians raided and looted the businesses of their neighbors in Providence? Being unjustly attacked does not justify attacking other innocents. Far from dethroning despots, such random violence produces a different but equally deadly form of despotism: mob rule. Martin Luther King Jr. recognized this, as has every effective defender of rights. In detailing his dream, he warned those

who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: in the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.

King recognized that “the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence” were “a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir,” one that promised “that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” King and countless others who fought for the equal protection of all people’s rights understood that the core moral logic of America’s founding was on their side, and they used the system premised on individual rights to demand and enact equal protections for everyone’s rights.

Not so for today’s rioters, whose actions demonstrate disdain for individual rights and the American system. By burning and pillaging the property of their fellow citizens, rioters spit on the progress their forbears achieved under far worse circumstances.

If rioters want a world in which everyone’s rights are respected and protected, they must channel their energy away from criminal destruction and toward the recognition and protection of individual rights. This is how we carry forth the mantle of the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights movement. This is the path toward justice for George Floyd.

About Jon Hersey

Jon Hersey (@revivingreason) is managing editor of The Objective Standard and holds fellowships at Foundation for Economic Education, where he writes in defense of freedom, and at Objective Standard Institute, where he teaches courses and hosts the podcast “Philosophy for Flourishing.”

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