Race war or bust? MSM smothers racial unity over police killing of Minneapolis man by reminding blacks & whites to hate each other
by Helen Buyniski
The brutal police murder of an unarmed black man in Minneapolis united all races and political stripes in shocked outrage. So why is MSM invoking every racially-divisive incident they can to set society at each other’s throats?
Liberals and conservatives alike were horrified on Monday by a widely-circulated Facebook video showing a white police officer choking an unarmed, handcuffed black man to death by kneeling on his neck for upwards of seven minutes, ignoring his increasingly feeble cries for help until he went limp. Regardless of their race, viewers demanded the officer – Minneapolis Police Department’s Derek Chauvin – be charged with murder and cheered at the news he and three colleagues present during the Memorial Day incident had been suspended from the force.
Given the country’s oft-lamented polarization, it’s rare to see such broad agreement on something as controversial as a police killing. But the sight of George Floyd struggling to wheeze out “I can’t breathe” while Chauvin mocked the anguished cries of onlookers convinced many to put aside their ideological feuds and get outraged. Seeing the life slowly choked out of the 46-year-old for nothing more than allegedly “resisting arrest” over supposedly forging a check at a supermarket was beyond the pale.
Liberals and conservatives alike were horrified on Monday by a widely-circulated Facebook video showing a white police officer choking an unarmed, handcuffed black man to death by kneeling on his neck for upwards of seven minutes, ignoring his increasingly feeble cries for help until he went limp. Regardless of their race, viewers demanded the officer – Minneapolis Police Department’s Derek Chauvin – be charged with murder and cheered at the news he and three colleagues present during the Memorial Day incident had been suspended from the force.
Given the country’s oft-lamented polarization, it’s rare to see such broad agreement on something as controversial as a police killing. But the sight of George Floyd struggling to wheeze out “I can’t breathe” while Chauvin mocked the anguished cries of onlookers convinced many to put aside their ideological feuds and get outraged. Seeing the life slowly choked out of the 46-year-old for nothing more than allegedly “resisting arrest” over supposedly forging a check at a supermarket was beyond the pale.
this is neat pic.twitter.com/0XMHjpSpp3— shoe (@shoe0nhead) May 27, 2020
Mainstream media’s narrative managers were determined to shatter that unity, however.
Journalists and politicians on social media reacted to this appalling show of excessive force not by unilaterally condemning police violence – that would risk cementing the dreaded “unity” – but by contrasting the crackdown with last month’s docile police response to a “Liberate Minnesota” protest against the state’s Covid-19 lockdown. Hundreds of mostly-white protesters, many strapped with guns, had surrounded the Governor’s Residence of Democrat Tim Walz, demanding an end to the pandemic-inspired stay-at-home order.
by the by, police did not react this way to protests against Minnesota's 'stay at home' order https://t.co/BTkJUeoax1— David Rudin (@DavidSRudin) May 27, 2020
A few weeks ago when morons with AR-15s stormed the MI capitol, I watched one of them accidentally hit a cop in the face with the barrel of his gun. He said "whoops" the cop smiled, he smiled, and their stupid lil protest continued. That is all.— Maurice Cancel Rent BP-Weeks (@mo87mo87) May 27, 2020
That the divisive narrative was fundamentally flawed – the Minneapolis crowd protesting Floyd’s murder was as white as it was black – didn’t matter. Nor was it deemed necessary to point out that the unarmed Minneapolis protesters were not a threat to the riot-gear-clad cops, who’d have had to be suicidal to fire rubber bullets into a crowd of AR-15-packing wannabe-militiamen the previous month. It was too late – the spell of unity had been broken, and the conversation had degenerated into bickering over the morality of property damage and whether molotov cocktails were justified in the face of murder.
News in Minnesota reports gunshots at the protest, and somebody shot. Police confirm. No life threatening injuries.— David, Fiery Resister (@flowingfire) May 27, 2020
Video shows a squad car surrounded & people throwing rocks. FOX reported a molotov cocktail.
Given #GeorgeFloyd's death, this response strikes me as understated. pic.twitter.com/nDokZNJyEh
.@Kaepernick7’s protests cost him his NFL career. White America’s refusal to address the reasons behind them cost George Floyd his life.https://t.co/2WhcGyrgAL— Nancy Armour (@nrarmour) May 27, 2020
The MSM narrative-managers poured it on thick in their effort to muddy the waters, dragging in months’ worth of racial controversies. Anything was fair game, as long as it could be used to guide conservatives and liberals, blacks and whites back to their proper positions at each other’s throats.
Source: rt.com
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