George Floyd’s Cries Spark a Battle Cry for Compassion
How the body cam video transformed my journey as a white educator of minorities.
I knew watching the body cam video of George Floyd would be difficult. The same kind of difficult as watching Shindler’s List or 12 Years a Slave. So, when my husband resolved to watch it, I had no desire to join him.
As a supporter of the Black Lives Movement, I fall in line with a growing number of Americans who believe police brutality is racially charged and inherently problematic. With the courage of these convictions, I had no desire for further proof and certainly didn’t want to do so by viewing the moments leading up to George’s murder.
Still, once he pressed play I felt compelled to join him.
I could only watch about ten minutes of it before begging to turn it off. I had seen enough. The altercation between the police and George Floyd seemed eerily familiar. Horrified, I realized that I’ve played a role similar to the officers before. Except I’m not the police. I’m a teacher.
A few years ago, as a white woman and educator to a majority of children of color, I decided to continue my professional learning by immersing myself in cultural proficiency classes and discussions. I considered it essential to understand implicit bias, institutional racism, and intergenerational trauma. I actively participated in conversations about these subjects with a diverse crew, practiced how to be an active listener, and challenged myself to reflect deeply on my own implicit bias as prescribed guidance both in and out of the classroom.
My journey in reform gave me a better understanding of compassion from a uniquely American lens — compassion that has been blurred and at times displaced for far too long.
The more personal stories I heard, the more I understood just how deep-rooted stigmatized racism is. I have explored the inequitable web of intersectionality that defines our uniquely American plague of injustice. And I have studied how ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) combined with these forces create debilitating effects on individuals, on groups, on cultures, and on society at large. Eventually, I was devastated to recognize the role I have played in propagating these forces, even if it was solely through inaction.
I know, to successfully unearth racism from its root and eradicate it, all perspectives must be brought to light and we must force ourselves to confront uncomfortable truths.
So, last night when I confronted George Floyd’s beginning of his end, I saw more than a black man and a victim of racism. Yet, truly and indisputably he fit in both those categories.
I physically squirmed as I realized that these truths were more excruciating than uncomfortable. Listening to George’s final words, I saw how plainly some of my six-year-old students resembled George. And once the connection was made, I couldn’t unsee it.
I am referring to the type of six-year-olds who cry out for help with challenging attention-seeking behaviors. Commonly known as “problem children” and regarded less cynically among professionals as students with challenging behaviors, they’re the children who keep me up at night. Mesmerized, I realized why George reminded me of these students in crisis.
Like George, they responded strongly when triggered by fear. But, unlike George’s nonviolent approach, toppled desks and thrown chairs were often my class’ collateral damage from the pain felt by generations of inequities these children inherited. Screaming painful self-defeating words at themselves, at the world, hurled at anyone who might listen. They never want to hurt anyone, but they don’t know how to release the emotional tension that boils deep inside of them. These young victims of a society in crisis, perceived by too many as too broken to be fixed, were so hopelessly unavailable to learn, their psyche so tragically disfigured, that survival was the name of their game. Distrustful and commonly misunderstood, these students are at risk of becoming another sacrificial offering for the school to prison pipeline, or worse, a victim of murder like George.
I had students like these, year in and year out, who both challenge you and pull on your heartstrings, carrying their vast layers of ineffable suffering with them. Too young to process their trauma and too damaged to trust, they are a spitfire of emotions, lacking the self-control and loving backbone necessary to be streamlined in our civil society.
But yet they yearn to be heard, just like George did.
Needless to say, I underestimated how emotionally vested in the video I would become.
“I’m sorry.” Those were George’s first words when the officer approached. When he repeated the word “sorry” again and again, I heard my six-year-old student say “I need help.”
When he said “I got shot the same way before,” I heard my student say “I’ve been the victim before and I can’t handle the suffering.”
But when I heard him say “I just lost my mom,” I nearly lost it. This was all in the first minute of the altercation. Up until this moment, I saw one of my tiny six-year-old students in crisis. I saw one of my scared vulnerable boys whose father was in jail and whose mother was an addict. I saw a distressed child just screaming out for love.
I wanted to scream at the officers, “listen to him!” Dramatically, forcefully, I wanted to hurl those simple words at them and grab them by their blue collars to yank them back to humanity.
But then I couldn’t unsee that they were just like Nazis, terrorizing George and offering him not one glimmer of human dignity.
Howling for help, his cries of anxiety and fear came on deaf ears, stolid ears completely lacking in the compassion necessary in professionals who deal intimately with people. The compassion that was bereft throughout the entire encounter with police. And the same compassion that has taken the back burner, supplanted by a collective apathy for the complex suffering that affects too many to the point of silence. A point of silence that has been paid for by complex trauma and inequities, often manifesting itself in crime, drugs, poverty, and abuse. In a system that reinforces demonizing the vulnerable, the sick cycle reigns unrelentingly.
Yes, suddenly George Floyd was an adult again, able to communicate his source of grief for the mother he lost nearly two years ago to the day. Still, the officer’s response was “step out and face away.” Face away so the officer didn’t have to face George, the easiest way to dehumanize him and regard him as another villainous delinquent. Face away so the officer could justify his duty by locking up another “bad guy” while repeating the lie that criminals are the ones solely responsible for all the wrongs of our crime-ridden nation. Face away so that human compassion dare not be tempted. Face away so that the officer can rid society of these tainted seeds and continue to weed out those who do not fit in Chief Bromden’s description of The Combine.
I crumbled when I realized that my six-year-olds in crisis would likely one day be the first to be turned away from the compassion they so desperately need. Now, more than ever, these children are given many chances to get things right — to change, to adapt, to trust, to grow. But I admit that it hasn’t always been this way, and we still have a long way to go. Frankly, I know that the vicious cycle of stigmatized racism begins at school, by demonizing the children we should have been investing most in.
“The kids who need the most love will ask for it in the most unloving ways.” -Russell Barkley
In recent years, educators have embraced the new educator buzzwords such as “restorative justice,” “cultural proficiency,” and “trauma-informed practices” in our classrooms. We are striving to improve our archaic tactics of labeling, restraining, and suspending children, by working together to stop stigmatizing our most at-risk youth and to respond with a safe place and a compassionate heart.
Education attracts compassionate people who want to make a positive difference in the lives of their students. I believe the police force similarly intends to make a positive difference in the lives of the citizens they swear to serve and protect. But somewhere along the line, educators and police officers alike have grown jaded from the great burden of working with the most vulnerable, the most challenging, the most taxing on our energy. It’s easy to categorize and brand the criminals, and sacrifice them as undesirable victims of a vicious cycle you feel too insignificant to help.
I believe this is why all the officers ignored George’s repeated pleas for help. It’s easy to do, if you label a man a criminal and if that label cannot ever be removed or changed. It’s easy for our judgmental society to do if you write him off as a crackhead. Or an adult in crisis. Or black. Or, worse, all these in one.
It’s nauseating to digest how easy it was for each of these officers to justify their actions to themselves at the time. Because, let’s face it, in America, the vulnerable have always been targeted. Because in America, compassion is reserved for the few who solicit our attention. Those with a slight blemish, but otherwise easy to fix. Those who the majority feel they can relate to. Those who look and act like them.
When we hear “defund the police,” despite the details of how you may personally define that phrase, we are really hearing, “show compassion.” If teachers can do this, overwhelmed already with two to three dozen other students, I know, not only is it imperative police practice these tactics and learn the wisdom associated with cultural proficiency, but it is absolutely necessary to change an entire collective mindset. We must dismantle preconceived labels and reflect deeply and perpetually on the obscured forces of racial and social inequities, as well as the effects of trauma.
To me, George Floyd wasn’t just the latest misunderstood victim of police brutality, a tragedy steeped in racism and inequities. He was emotionally abandoned, dehumanized from the start, and labeled and categorically criminalized without the dignity of his needs or his rights. I couldn’t unsee my scared little boys who cried out for help, repeatedly, desperately.
But while George’s cries for his mama were tragically ignored, it now resonates with the world as the battle cry for compassion.
Racism is the antithesis of compassion. While tolerance is compassionate, we cannot learn to be compassionate without investing in active listening.
And I’ve heard his cries loud and clear.
