Lawrence O’Donnell interviewed George Floyd’s sister the other night. He asked her how her brother most likely would have responded to being stopped by the police.

She paused, collected her thoughts; maybe she had to remove a lump from her throat, or maybe I’m remembering the one in my own. And then her answer cut me to the quick: he followed directions, he always followed directions.

Oh my god, I don’t care if he broke every fucking rule in the book, the man did not deserve to die on that street, suffering, suffocating, snuffed out by the cruelty of those officers.

And I’m reaching here, reaching outside my very white experience, but damn, isn’t that a defense I’ve heard from black people before? Isn’t that the answer they’re supposed to give? Does it ever really help? And isn’t that a line I’ve heard from the white people in power before? “shoulda followed directions.” Isn’t this part of The Talk that black teens get? to just do what the cop says, don’t give them any purchase to hurt you, don’t give them an excuse?

My stomach is turning. They don’t need an excuse, and they know it. A community-based policing system, one that supports rather than harms its citizens, can’t rely on the “good cops” who know that cutting off someone’s air supply might be a step too far. It needs to be policy, practice, training, from the ground up. But no, we don’t have that. And here we are.

Watching the crowds in Minneapolis last night, watching the fires and the rage, I was torn between two extremes: sympathy, empathy with the righteous anger, and fear that this very outrage would bring down the National Guard, martial law, and more death. The people in the crowd had to have known that possibility.

Never the less, they persisted. Maybe they’d get more respect, and less death, if they were a middle aged white woman. Ok, that’s mostly me just pissing on McConnell shutting down Elizabeth Warren, but it’s on the same spectrum, one with a very deadly end. Middle aged white women who speak out get their voice cut off, if only for a moment. Black men and women who “step out of line” get their air cut off.