Black People Gathering Still Poses a Threat
Brandt Williams @BrandtMPR is a Minneapolis reporter who is covering Chauvin’s trial. He posted a statement on his tweeter feed as noted:
“Defense Atty Eric Nelson has consistently asked police witnesses about the possible threats posed by observers. It is part of his narrative that the crowd gathered at 38th and Chicago posed a threat and that Chauvin’s actions were consistent with training.”
The Defense Atty Eric Nelson is only raising this question because the crowd of people was black. He is driving home the narrative to play on the fears of some whites that it was an angry mob.
True story. I was at a fitness club in Lansing, Michigan, years ago, and a group of my friends was there too. I lived in Lansing, which was not a large city, and didn’t have many fitness places. We had assembled in a group laughing and kibitzing. From the corner of my eye, I could see that one of the white workers was starting to pace anxiously. She looked frightened. Finally, she came over to us and told us in a forceful voice that we needed to break up the gathering. It was not allowed. I was agitated and started to question her, but my friends didn’t want to challenge her. They did as instructed. I couldn’t believe this young lady but, more importantly, I also couldn’t believe how my friends acquiesced.
I am not sure what was going on in her brain, but I had seen white women convene, laugh, talk at the club, and no staff bothered to tell them that they couldn’t assemble. We did nothing wrong. It was clear that our blackness frightened the white worker. Did she see us as an angry mob? Could she not see that we were laughing and were peaceful? The only disruptor was her and her overactive mind.
Images can be stronger than reality, especially if people believe in what they have conjured up in their minds as truth. Atty Nelson, in my opinion, appears to be attempting to draw from the images of the minds of the white jurors that it is frightening when black people assemble.
It is not that the “crowd gathering at 38th and Chicago posed a threat,” and that Chauvin’s actions were consistent with training.” It is the perceived threat Atty Nelson is hammering to make it appear that Chauvin was in danger of the crowd, and George Floyd’s possible resuscitating exhibiting erratic behavior allowed Chauvin’s actions.
I was in my 20s when the incident occurred, and I am over 50 years of age now, and what some white people will do without critical thinking or rational mind is fear black people because of their inept images.