The marginalization of African Americans was again brought to a new and unfortunate high degree, when a viral video of the Killing of George Floyd early this week on a Minneapolis street surfaced.
The 46 year old man died on Monday night when an officer, later identified to be Derek Chauvin had pinned him to the ground with a knee to his neck.
In the midst of ongoing protests and calls for justice for the killing of George Floyd, popular American pastor, Bishop T.D. Jakes has weighed in on what he called “my thoughts” on the country’s current racial climate.
In a post on Instagram, he mentioned of how in recent times there have been frequent extrajudicial killings of Black Americans, while berating the Minneapolis killing.
He said, “Lately it seems, each week produces a new account of a black person being slaughtered by police officers or individuals with ties to law enforcement.
“In march, it was Breonna Taylor, a hard working Louisville EMT who was shot dead in her apartment by Police officers who said they were looking for two people suspected of selling drugs- neither of whom lived in her apartment.
“The previous month it was Ahmaud Aubery, an unharmed black man gunned down on a street in Brunswick, GA, while hogging after being chased down by a father and son who claimed they suspected him in a rash of break-ins n the neighborhood.
“Prosecutors practically sat on the case until a video of Ahmaud’s extra-judicial execution surfaced online.”
In the post Jakes also reiterated what he called a “horrifying video” of the killing of George Floyd, and expressed how the officers involved would have gotten away with the murder if there was no footage of the killing.
“It would be nice if the voices that ask us not to rush to judgement whenever we call out racial bias in law enforcement would apply that same barometer each time police rush to execute an unarmed black man,” He added.
He then called for a National conversation on policing and race, which he said must be “followed by an action plan.”
Bishop Jakes ended by terming his call-to-action as not just a self-interest, but as a moral imperative.
“Learn to do good: seek justice, correct oppression,” the prophet wrote in the first chapter of Isaiah.
“And as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. aptly put it, ‘The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people, but the silence over that by the good people.’
“You cannot be a christian and remain silent about this degree of injustice. That would be a real tragedy, he concluded.”
