Here is how New York Governor Andrew Cuomo expressed his grief and support for protesters in Minneapolis during his daily coronavirus briefing on My 29.
“I want to make one point about the larger context of what’s going on in Minneapolis today, which I’m sure is very distressing to all of us. And I want to begin by offering our personal thoughts and prayers to the family of George Floyd on behalf of all New Yorkers who have seen that incredible video. We can imagine your pain and you are in our thoughts and prayers. I would also suggest that when we think about this situation and we start to analyze the situation and the reaction. Let’s not make the same mistake that we continually make, which is we tend to see incidents. This is an incident, an isolated incident. People focus on an isolated incident. It’s not an isolated incident. It is a continuum of cases and situations that have been going on for decades, and decades, and decades.
These are just chapters in a book. And the title of the book is continuing injustice and inequality in America, and these are just chapters.
The chapters started modern day Rodney King in Los Angeles, 1991.
Abner Louima in New York, 1997.
Amadou Diallo in New York, 1999.
Sean Bell in New York, 2006.
Oscar Grant, Oakland, California, 2009.
Eric Garner, New York City, 2014.
Michael Brown, Missouri, 2014.
Laquan McDonald, Chicago, 2014.
Freddie Gray, Baltimore, 2015.
Antwon Rose, Pittsburgh, 2018.
Ahmed Aubrey in Georgia, 2020.
Breonna Taylor in Kentucky, 2020.
George Floyd in Minneapolis, 2020.
That’s, that’s why the outrage. That’s why the frustration and the anger. It is not about one situation. It’s about the same situation happening again, and again, and again, and again. And seeing the same thing and not learning the lesson. And then is that happening in a broader context and a broader circumstance which is what’s going on with the coronavirus. Which affects and kills more minorities than anyone else. You look around this country and you look at the people who are dying of the coronavirus. It is disproportionate African-American people and it’s just a continuing injustice and that’s the frustration and that’s the protests.
Nobody is sanctioning the arson, and the thuggery, and the burglaries. But the protesters, and the anger, and the fear, and the frustration? Yes. Yes. And the demand is for justice. And when the prosecutor came out and said well there’s other evidence, but I can’t tell you anything more than that. That only incited the frustration. Injustice in the justice system. How repugnant to the concept of America.
And over, and over, and over again. I stand figuratively with the protestors. I stand against the arson, and the burglary, and the criminality. I stand with the protesters and I think all well-meaning Americans stand with the protesters. Enough is enough. How many times do you have to see the same lesson replayed before you do something? This country is better than this. It has been better than this and it shouldn’t take this long to end basic discrimination and basic injustice.
