George Floyd, Tou Thao and the Parable of Our Times
The parable of our times.
A white man, keeping a black man down.
A black man, dying under the weight of his oppressor.
An angry crowd, sidelined and unable to step in to save.
An Asian man, refusing to intervene.
As the news of George Floyd’s death emerged, as the video footage was posted and viewed millions of times, it was unsettling to watch the life of a(nother) black man taken so needlessly.
But, for me, this one felt different. There was something else that was unsettling about it and it took me a bit of time to realize what it was that shook me. Eventually, I realized that what unsettled me about this video was the Asian face staring back at me, while a murderous act of a racist system was happening mere feet behind where he was standing. Tou Thao is the police officer who is doing crowd control in this video and is one of the 4 police officers who have been fired by Minneapolis police.
Daniel Hill, in his book, White Awake, uses Rev. Julian DeShazier’s definition of privilege as “the ability to walk away.”
I was the Asian man in this video. Refusing to intervene. Conveniently avoiding the conflict which appears to be so clearly a black and white issue. Not…
