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George Floyd and the ‘Backlash’ Narrative

Posted on | May 28, 2025 | 3 Comments

‘Social justice’ in Minneapolis, May 28, 2020

Amid a nationwide carnival of destructive violence following the death of George Floyd in May 2020, few episodes of the “most peaceful protests” were more idiotic than burning down an affordable housing project under construction in Minneapolis. The six-story building was to have had 189 apartments, including 38 “affordable” units, as well as ground-floor retail space, and had been scheduled to open in spring 2021, but the arsonists of the Black Lives Matters movement destroyed it.

Nobody was ever prosecuted for that crime, but very few members of the mobs that rioted that year were prosecuted anywhere, let alone in Minneapolis, where the mayor and governor and district attorney were too busy groveling before the BLM crowd to do anything about the crime wave that followed George Floyd’s death. While the arsonists who burned down the affordable housing project went unpunished, the same was not true of those who torched the nearby Third Precinct police station — that was prosecuted as a federal crime, you see.

Clockwise from top left: Braden Michael Wolfe, Davon De-Andre Turner, Bryce Michael Williams, and Dylan Shakespeare Robinson

All of them got from two to four years in federal prison. What did these perps do to advance “social justice”? Where is the value-added? Who benefits from mindless destruction? Well, Democrats do.

You can click here for a useful compendium of facts about the death of George Floyd, who was not “murdered,” no matter what anyone tries to tell you. But the facts didn’t matter to the rioters, who did not actually care about George Floyd. They were just Democratic voters, whipped up into a frenzy of hatred, so that they could be mobilized on behalf of Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. At one level, Black Lives Matter was merely a get-rich-quick swindle — “social justice” for cash — perpetrated by Patrisse Cullors and friends. At another level, however, it was about converting accusations of racism into political capital for Democrats.

Every year, about 1,000 people in the United States are shot to death by law enforcement officers — roughly three times a day, cops shoot and kill somebody somewhere in America, but very few of those cases become national news stories. The media are very selective about which police shootings they treat as important enough for national attention. In every year since 2017, the number of white suspects shot by cops has been larger than the number of black suspects shot. But there is no “social justice” angle in cops killing white suspects, so you never hear about any of those shootings. Also, you never hear about any case where an armed suspect gets into a shootout with cops. No, it’s always the unarmed black suspect whose death in a police shooting gets national media attention.

Guess what? Such shootings are a statistical rarity, and even in those rare cases, there are usually extenuating circumstances that explain what happened. Still, if you’re working with a sample size as large as 1,000 fatal shootings by police, and if about one-third of those cases involve black suspects, all you need is for one percent (1%) to be “controversial,” and you’ve got the potential for a race riot three times a year.

BLM activists had a habit of doing the “say their names” thing, rolling out a list of names of putative victims of police racism. Next time you see one of those lists, you should take some time to research the individual cases, because the majority of them fall into that “extenuating circumstances” category. The case that put BLM on the map — the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri — is quite typical. Activists manufactured a myth of innocence about Brown — “Hands up, don’t shoot” — but investigation proved otherwise. Even the Obama Justice Department couldn’t find evidence of police wrongdoing in that case.

So here’s the New York Times headline:

5 Years After George Floyd’s Murder,
the Backlash Takes Hold
The Black Lives Matter movement, kicked
into high gear after Mr. Floyd’s murder
on May 25, 2020, has given way to the politics
of “white grievance” championed by President Trump.

You see? It’s all about politics. It’s not about public safety or justice or any real concern about civil rights. Rather, it’s about Trump — Trump! Trump! Trump! — and the Democratic Party talking point that any time a Republican wins an election, it’s bad for black people. This is a sort of tautology that liberals never question, because they operate from the premise of their own good intentions (“we vote Democrat because we want to help black people”) and, on that basis, assume that anyone who opposes them must have bad intentions. To them, it’s self-evident.

Was all the arson, vandalism and looting in response to George Floyd’s death good for black people? Can anyone explain how burning down an affordable housing development helped the black community?

More generally, did the anti-police rhetoric of the Black Lives Matter Movement, and the “reform” policies implemented in response to that rhetoric, help or hurt the black community? Isn’t it true that BLM’s anti-police message tended to justify and excuse criminal behavior? And what were the consequences of that? Say hello to Nazir Clemons.

In December 2021, Clemons was working as a GrubHub delivery driver, and was parked outside of a restaurant on Clark Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio, waiting for an order, when he was robbed by two armed men, who shot him and stole his car, a blue 2012 Ford Fusion. Fortunately, Clemons survived being shot, but guess what? The next day, 20 miles away in the Cleveland suburb of Solon, Ohio, police spotted the stolen Ford and a pursuit took place that ended when the driver, swerving to avoid “stop sticks” that police had put in his path, lost control and rammed into two other vehicles. Inside one of the other vehicles was an 85-year-old woman who died from her injuries.

The judge threw the book at Jaymarlon Hayes:

A harsh sentence for 19-year-old Jaymarlon Hayes today who will now spend 71.5 years in prison.
Cuyahoga County Judge William Vodrey said it’s where he belongs to protect the public.
“The defense suggest that the defendant has the potential to do good. I hope that’s true. However any good you do, will be within the state prison,” Judge Vodrey said.
Within a five day span, prosecutors said Hayes stole a car, shot a man and then crashed into a car killing 85-year-old Sally Schultz.

In appealing the lengthy sentence, his attorneys argued that “Hayes has an IQ of 72, and a record of untreated mental health problems,” and also, “Hayes’s father was incarcerated for most of Hayes’s childhood.” How is that an argument for leniency? You’re stupid, you’re crazy, and you inherited your father’s criminal tendencies? But I digress . . .

The deadly crime spree that put Jaymarlon Hayes in prison was not an isolated incident, but rather part of a trend of out-of-control crime in the wake of the George Floyd riots. Carjackings and other vehicle thefts soared nationwide. A study of major cities found that “the average carjacking rate was 20.1 (per 100,000) in 2018 and 37.9 in 2023” — that’s a 90% increase. There was also “an increase in motor vehicle theft, with the average rate rising from 475.6 in 2018 to 1,070.5 . . . in 2023” — more than a 100% increase. And finally: “Carjacking victims and reported offenders were disproportionately male and Black.”

Am I engaged in “backlash” by calling attention to these facts? Is it some kind of “social justice” to tolerate violent crime? Must we turn loose black criminals, without regard to the fact that most of the victims of their crimes are also black? How does such an attitude — the “revolving-door” jail, setting criminal free with a slap on the wrist — actually help anyone?

Some people say America has a race problem, but I would argue instead that America has a liberal problem. Liberals elect Democrats, and the results are predictably bad — Minneapolis has been a Democrat stronghold forever — and yet somehow it’s always Republicans who get blamed for what goes on in such places. The drug-addled criminal George Floyd dies in Minneapolis, and it’s Trump’s fault. Those of us who voted for Trump, and who live far away from Minneapolis, we are to blame for George Floyd’s death, rather than the Democrat-voting citizens of Minneapolis. Ladies and gentlemen, I plead not guilty.

If you want to call that “backlash,” so be it.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!



 

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