Opinion: The Tragic Covid Death of George Floyd

The Governor of Illinois has released a video in which one of his spokespersons explains what constitutes a “Covid death.” That explanation was so stunning I made a transcript of it.

I just want to be clear in terms of the definition of people dying of Covid, so, the case definition is very simplistic (her word, with no irony intended), so, it means at the time of death, um, it was a Covid positive diagnosis. So that means that if you were in hospice and had already been given, you know, a few weeks to live, and then you were also found to have Covid that would be counted as a Covid death….

This provoked a rather intemperate rant on my part. Allow me to share it with you!

I see!  So anyone who dies while testing positive for Covid, regardless of the actual cause of death, must be counted as a Covid death.  Not to put too fine a point on all this, but it does make clear that George Floyd’s much lamented demise was a “Covid death.”  After all, George Floyd did test positive for Covid in his post mortem. (And you thought he died of cardiac arrest while under the influence of fentanyl and methamphetamine.)  Which means of course that the four officers who attended his passing will be acquitted, as a result of which we can expect more protesting (forgive me, I almost wrote “rioting and looting”), which all but guarantees that some sunshine patriot will make a sensible statement about his support of the American flag (thank you Drew Brees) and then piddle down his leg with apologies so copious they have to be numbered. (Update: Drew Brees is now bravely “standing by” his apologies for supporting our flag.)

Meanwhile, has anyone bothered to ask if the claims upon which these most recent collective hysterics have been based are even true?  The Washington Post keeps track of the number of unarmed men killed by police each year.  Would it surprise anyone that, as of three days ago, that number was a mere 20?  Oh, pardon me!  That was the number of unarmed white men killed by police officers in this country of 330 million people last year.  The Post’s entire count of unarmed black men killed by police in 2019, and that includes men violently resisting arrest and/or trying to take the arresting officers weapon, was–brace yourselves–a sum total of nine.  (Never to be outdone in political correctness, and in honor of Mr. Floyd, the Post has since Monday re-categorised six more cases and is now claiming 15 such deaths including one female.)

So there you have it, the proof that America’s police forces are engaged in a genocide against black people.  Pass out the bricks, ladies and gentlemen, and the Molotov Cocktails.  Where do I go to break some windows and get my very own free TV?

If I seem to be insensitive…  If I seem to be implying that all the BLM and Antifa slogans circulating in support of these “peaceful” protests are farcically false, please accept my apology.  Because, quite honestly, I did not mean to imply any such thing.  I meant to state directly and for the record–in no uncertain terms–that this entire charade is an exercise in mass hysteria based on a lie.  It is an auto de fe matched only by the Soviet show trials.  It is a witch hunt to rival The Crucible.  In short, it is a craven and disgusting exercise in pointless self-degradation by people who have very little to apologize for and even less spine.

Does my honesty expose that deplorable white privilege all Caucasians are said to have?  (That is, am a racist by virtue of the color of the skin that was involuntarily imposed upon me?)  Yes, if that means I can resist the mentality of the mob, if it means I can think clearly and objectively in spite of all the Orwellian social pressure we now face, and if it means I refuse to participate in this perpetual and asinine “minute of hate” that has gripped our nation.

More of an apology than that you will not see from me.  Don’t like it?  Too bad!  A police officer is 18 times more likely to be killed by a black man in this country than to kill an unarmed black man. FBI statistics show that Blacks murder many times more White people each year than are murdered by White people. In fact, according to numbers I obtained from the Tuskegee Institute, black men murder as about many white Americans each year as the entire total of blacks lynched in the history of this nation (roughly 4,000 in each instance).  https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/map-shows-over-a-century-of-documented-lynchings-in-united-states-180961877/ (Note: The Tuskegee web site is temporarily down, but this Smithsonian report confirms my accounting of the numbers.) And yet no one is burning a city for those forgotten victims.  No one is burning even a candle.

But the funny thing is, I don’t blame all black people for these deaths, any more than I blame all white people or even all police officers for the tragic passing of that violent career criminal George Floyd. (Floyd had multiple felony convictions including one for armed home invasion during which he pointed a loaded revolver at the abdomen of a black expectant mother.) It has gone largely without notice that of the four officers involved in George Floyd’s ugly and unjustified death, two were not white but Asian. Tou Thao, a high school graduate and former McDonald’s trainer, is Vietnamese. He helped restrain George Floyd. Though the ethnicity of Rookie J. Alexander Kueng has not been officially identified, “Kueng” is an Indonesian surname which matches this officer’s physical appearance. Alexander Kueng has a BA in sociology, and was formerly employed as floor security at Macy’s.  He stood by watching as Mr. Floyd breathed his last. Is anyone suggesting that we should all rampage against Asians?

So let me offer what I believe is a fair question! Was this single unjust taking of a human life really proof of some kind of “systemic” racist conspiracy against Black people? Was it really a plausible cause to justify the burning down of our cities? Grow up America!  Or grow some cajones!  This obscene pretense of collective guilt has gone on long enough.  If I haven’t been clear, then here it is one more time for the record: I am guilty of nothing in this matter of race either as an individual or on account of the color of my skin. I have nothing to apologize for, and so I do not apologize!  If that isn’t clear enough, then let me explain! Anyone looking for an apology from me (expletives deleted) will wait until pigs fly!