Fall 2025.

 

 

Fall 2025

This upcoming fall of 2025 represents a challenge and opportunity. It represents the reality of our rights being violated and hope for a better future. One lesson in life is to find joy. Joy is never about naivete or ignoring the world's problems. Joy is a sense of determination and a sense of peace plus enjoyment to witness that quiet place that we can be renewed in our spirits to fight the good fight. This joy can be about laughing with friends, walking in Nature, and praying at a still location. We must reckon with reality, too. There is absolutely no excuse to have massive starvation and overt genocide against the Palestinian people (as documented by the United Nations and even Israeli human rights groups), massive criminalization of homelessness in America, the record high prices of groceries and homes in the United States, the existence of racism and sexism, the growth of xenophobia in many quarters of the globe (according to Fortune Magazine, Trump is deporting so many immigrants that it could cause inflation to hit 4% for the time of 2026-2027), and other injustices still plaguing our lands. Now, we have Trump, who has placed National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., with plans for him to placed like minded troops in many cities across the country from Chicago to Memphis. I will not sugarcoat my language for the sake of political correctness. I will never compromise my core convictions as God desires boldness in the midst of evil.  A lot of people want to be politically correct and whitewash the reality of our nation, but I'm not that of person. I am built differently. 

For years, you know me as a person who tells it like it is. Back in the 2000s, I made it clear that I didn't agree with many of the conflicts of interests found in the 9/11 Commission. When the Iraq War was in its infancy, I opposed it. Today, in America, we live in an authoritarian state filled with fascism. There is no other way to put. The more people understand this fact, the more we can work together to find solutions to end this fascist agenda. That agenda is real as ICE terrorized a 15-year-old American student with autism as ICE claimed it was mistaken identity. We know of American citizens who were unjustly arrested by ICE and placed into internment camps now in 2025. We have a regime where one man wants museums to ignore the brutality of white racist terrorism, we have a regime who passed a law to cut health care and the social safety net from millions of Americans (when coal miners have black lung disease who need health care), and a Trump regime who wants birthright citizenship to be banned. As this regime promotes our taxpayer funds to build Florida's Alligator Alcatraz, we salute the many protesters who don't desire genocide, hatred, poor scapegoating, and imperialism. The Trump regime and MAGA followers sacrilegiously hide behind religion as an excuse to be the most anti-environmental administration in American history by gutting legitimate anti-pollution safety rules (including pro-Trump Senators desiring to remove the limits on the seven deadly poisons that were banned over 55 years ago), which can cost thousands of American lives to be lost. When I saw Triple H shake the hand of Donald Trump recently, that didn't shock me as Educational Secretary Linda McMahon has a notorious reactionary agenda involving educational services. McMahon has no extensive educational experience. 

There is a war on dissent by the Trump administration when it tries to intimidate universities, TV corporations, and regular people who oppose his views. People have the First Amendment right to disagree with Donald Trump and his administration. We see the big picture. Trump is doing this to promote the anti-democratic accelerationist agenda to make people revert back to a medieval, oligarchical system that the one percent has advocated covertly and overtly for centuries. The National Guard occupation of Washington, D.C. is not a long-term way to reduce crime as you can't permanently militarize your way to reduce crime. Reducing crimes requires addressing the roots of poverty, going out to build institutions to help those with mental health issues, dealing with gun violence, growing anti-violence intervention programs, seeking fair treatment, and enforcing laws fairly to handle criminals.

Trump is a liar (by saying that the 2020 election was stolen, saying that cities like Baltimore are trash, and claiming that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio are collectively eating dogs) and a hypocrite. The fascist said that months ago, that he will promote free speech. Yet, he allowed the FCC to fire Jimmy Kimmel because he made a comment about how the Trump administration wanted to characterize the murderer of Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it. Kimmel's remarks were not inflammatory nor massively terrible. We know now that the shooter is not MAGA, but many people thought that. Also, we know that many MAGA followers are terrorists involved in the January 6th terrorist insurrection, we know how many MAGA followers harass progressive voices, and we know how Trump recently said that he wants the FCC to revoke TV licenses over any negative coverage of him. This is even beyond Kimmel. This is about Trump overtly promoting attacks on the First Amendment or free speech. That is the definition of fascism. The agenda of dictatorship and fascism has been promoted by the oligarchy for decades and centuries. My people's oppression is a living example of that agenda. We have an epidemic of homelessness, poverty, and economic dislocation in America. Trump and his acolytes want to suppress any political opposition. Trump hypocritically claims to oppose cancel culture, but wants institutions to suppress dissent against him. 

We have rising unemployment, the jobless rate for recent college graduates is as high as 6.5 percent, and black workers are jobless at 7.5 percent. Back in the day, you could pay for a house in about $1,000 - $2,000 a month in a mortgage. That is minuscule compared to the costs of mortgages on homes today. Recently, the black woman Karen Attiah from the Washington Post was unjustly fired for her social media posts after Kirk's killing. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened ABC to fire Kimmel or face the "hard way." This is even worse than Bush Jr. and Reagan combined. Senate and House Democrats have announced legislation to protect free speech. The bill is that No Political Enemies Act to protect dissent. While this is going on, we have genocide in Gaza, in Sudan, in the Congo, and in other places of the world. Israel tanks, bulldozers, and ground troops have entered Gaza City. Bernie Sanders is the first U.S. Senator to say that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

The Trump administration has hypocritically attacked progressives using their First Amendment rights, but Trump has targeted voices that disagree with their reprehensible policies found in universities, protesters, and other locations. This is against the freedom of speech. Vice President J.D. Vance celebrated the views of the racist and xenophobe Charlie Kirk as a joyful warrior for our country. Kirk promoted the Great Replacement theory racist myth and questioned the intellect of very intelligent, brilliant black women in misogynoir. Kirk made the racist remark that London was conquered by immigration by more Muslims than native born whites. First, a large percentage of whites in the UK didn't originate from the UK. Many of them came from Germany being descendants of the Angles, Jutes, Saxons, etc. Second, we now have DNA evidence of people of sub-Saharan African descent living in the UK since the days of the Roman Empire. Kirk promoted fascist politics and support Christian nationalism which is a theocratic perversion of authentic Christianity (which is about equality, love of your neighbor, and not scapegoting people for all evils in the world). Vance wanted to go after NGOs that in his mind facilitates and engages in "violence." Stephen Miller and Vance omits that the vast majority of domestic terrorism in the 21st century has been done by far right extremist terrorists. Now, you have many Americans fired for not venerating Charlie Kirk as divine or near infallible. The truth is that we should not celebrate his death (murder is wrong as Charlie Kirk should never have been murdered), but he was a demonic force that promoted racism, sexism, xenophobia, and other evils under the guise of "spirituality." These fascists claim to love free speech are targeting people who don't support Kirk's views.

George Floyd: Five Years later

 

It has been five years since the terrible events of the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in the year of 2025. To this day, many far-right people disgracefully mock the death of George Floyd like Lara Loomer and Charlie Kirk (who was murdered).  Recognizing that reality has nothing to do with a "victim mentality" as claimed by MAGA followers and conservative pundits. It has to do with authentically comprehending reality and truth. Racism, police brutality, and systematic oppression are facts of history indeed. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, who was a 46-year-old African American man and father, was murdered by the Minneapolis police. The police pinned him on the ground and knelt on his neck for over nine minutes when bystanders told the police to stop. Floyd cried out for his mother and said he can't breathe multiple times. The cops showed no empathy and continued to do so until his passing. Derek Chauvin continued to oppress Floyd until Floyd's life was gone.  Subsequently, the 2020 anti-racism and anti-police brutality protests globally from New York City to London resulted in the largest pro-black Lives Matter protests of all of human history. In America alone, about 26 million people took part of the multiethnic and multiracial protests against police terrorism. That proves to everyone that people among every color globally have sincere empathy for black human beings. It was a watershed time in society during the middle of the early era of the COVID-10 pandemic when millions of people were victims of the COVID-19 virus. It is also important to recognize the extrajudicial murders of black women like Breonna Taylor, Natasha McKenna, Kayla Moore, Korryn Gaines, Atatiana Jefferson, etc. as their lives have equal value to black men including all black people. 

This journey of the black freedom movement has a long history. Our black ancestors survived the Maafa, antebellum slavery, the peonage system, redlining, Jim Crow apartheid, housing discrimination policies, and other trials and tribulations to promote our diverse Black Excellence in STEM, music, theology, fashion, culture, and to athletics. The paradox of our time in 2025 is that the MAGA movement has influenced people to downplay or even whitewash the legitimate outrage of black people against anti-black oppression. Some podcasts and some social media advocates are explicit to harbor hatred not only of progressive views but also of black liberation precepts. Yet, our zeal for justice has not decreased or wavered precipitously. That is why grassroots activists have been continuing to fight against the evils of racism, police brutality, sexism, anti-immigrant terror, and environmental and health complications. This struggle for justice must be a struggle for both economic justice and racial justice. There must be both policies to address economic inequality (as the oligarchy uses policies to benefit the mostly rich and corporate interests) and prevent racial discrimination (as class oppression must be eliminated, but you need to create policies to stop racial oppression too) in social life. It's not an either/or proposition. You have to do both. In our time, we are up against the the MAGA agenda of dictatorship. The struggle continues, and we shall have the victory in the end. 

A Summary of the Black Freedom Struggle

To understand black culture and black history fully, you have to understand the black freedom struggle in America and the history of Africa. I am an African American who loves my own black African heritage. My heritage has been in existed long before America was created in 1776. It has a long history. Our story begins in Africa. In the beginning, the first humans came from Africa and traveled to the four corners of the Earth literally. The Maafa lasted for centuries from the end of the Middle Ages in the 1400's to the 1800s. The Maafa or the trans-Atlantic slave trade was about many evil people who kidnapped 10-12 million Africans to send them across the Atlantic and other places of the world. The vast majority of the ancestors of African Americans came from Western and Central Africa. Many of our ancestors came from many ethnic groups like the Bakongo, Igbo, Mandinka, Wolof, Akan, Fon, Yoruba, Makua, etc. Black African slaves were treated as cattle to financially benefit wealthy European oligarchs, and some African traitors (not all African people) were involved in the Maafa too. Most Africans were taken from Senegambia, the Sierra Leon region, the Gold Coast in Ghana, the Bight of Benin, the Bight of Biafra, Congo and Angola, Mozambique, parts of Tanzania, and Madagascar. The author Olaudah Equiano wrote about the horrific slave ships and the terrible experiences of slaves. 

The slave revolts existed in Africa, in the slave ships, and in the Americas to oppose the evil of slavery. Many slaves were abused, raped, beaten, family split apart, and cultures eliminated. The Portuguese imperialists started the Maafa, and then other Europeans from the English to even the Swedish had complicity in the slave trade. Black Americans have existed since the early 1500s with people like Estevaico or Esteban. African slaves were sent to Point Comfort or Hampton, Virginia in 1619. During colonial America, there were free and enslaved black people. There were rules in dealing with slaves and racialized slavery became more prominent by the year of 1700. Native Americans suffered genocide and slavery too. Rape of black women by white men were rampant by then. By the 1750s, the population of enslaved people of African descent born in America outnumbered African-born enslaved human beings. Many early slave revolted existed from Virginia to New York state. Many people have grown the abolitionist movement. After the American Revolution War, debates on slavery and equality continued. Some Americans wanted slavery, some wanted equality immediately, and some wanted a gradual approach to end slavery. The contradiction found in America was that the Declaration of Independence mentioned that all men are created equal, but its author, Thomas Jefferson owned over 200 slaves. Black people back then have no true freedom in America. Many black people fought on both sides of the American Revolution to promote freedom like Crispus Attucks and Colonel Tye. George Washington (who was a Freemason and a slave owning racist) later banned additional black people in the Continental Army in 1775. 

After the Revolutionary War, many black loyalists moved to Canada. Black Americans continued to fight for equality, set up churches, and created institutions. The North gradually ended slavery, and the South continued slavery for decades to come. America enforced the fugitive slave act to stop the spread of freed slaves and continued black people 3/5 of a human, which was immoral. Black people like Elizabeth Freeman and Quock Walker had to fight to make the new Massachusetts constitution to call all men born free and equal to gain release from slavery in 1780. Paul Cuffee was a black businessman in Boston. As America expanded, more black leaders stood up like Benjamin Banneker to be a Maryland astronomer, mathematician, surveyor, author, and farmer to help to survey the future District of Columbia. During the antebellum movement, black people fought slavery and were inspired by the 1804 Haitian Revolution. During this time, black slaves were sexually stalked and raped by white slaveowners, black slaves were shipped, killed, tortured, and had their limbs amputated. The cotton gin helped to expand the growth of cotton and slavery in the South. The importation of slaves were later banned. From the Posner rebellion to the Nat Turner rebellion in 1831, slavery was fought against at every step of the way by black heroic human beings. America had compromises to deal with slavery, but it didn't work as the nation refused to eliminate slavery completely. There were leaders like Harriet Tubman, Frederick Tubman, Sojourner Truth, William Still, etc. who spoke out against slavery. Many free black people worked in urban communities and worked diverse jobs. After the Dred Scott decision, the Civil War came about as the Confederacy illegally invaded Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Black American soldiers contributed heavily to the Union victory. After the Civil War, legalized slavery was banned by the 13th Amendment. Reconstruction came causing the first time in American history when black people held high political office in the state and federal government. It was a time of progress with many black people moving westward, forming HBCUs, and gaining some civil rights. Building black owned institutions is always legitimate. The backlash was hit by reactionary forces that ended Reconstruction. There was the Populist movement when both white and black workers fought for economic justice, but it ended by the far-right movement of reactionaries. This time saw the rise of leaders like W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, etc. People debate DuBois and Washington to see who was right or not. We know the truth. The truth is that both men were right on many issues and had errors too. DuBois was right to criticize capitalism, to oppose imperialism, to fight for political power, to fight racism, and to advance grassroots organizing in the black community. He was in error to support eugenics temporarily and made ad-hominem attacks against Marcus Garvey beyond legitimate critique. Washington was right to promote agriculture, industries, develop black owned institutions, voting rights later in his life, and economic development in the black community. Washington was in error to embrace xenophobic rhetoric, captialist exploitation, and the Atlanta Compromise. After Reconstruction, Jim Crow was at its peak and there was the nadir of race relations. Nadir means a terrible period. This period saw lynchings, no voting rights for many black people in the South, and total white racist riots against black communities from Memphis to St. Louis. Plessy v. Ferguson mandated Jim Crow apartheid. The Klan attacked black people and non-black supporters of racial justice. 

Still, black people fought. From 1890 to 1940, millions of African Americans were disenfranchised, killed, and brutalized. Thousands of black people were lynched, as recorded by Ida B. Wells and other researchers. Jim Crow prevented many black people from owning weapons to defend themselves and their families. So, the early civil rights movement grew with the Niagara Movement and the NAACP with founders like W.E.B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells, and other people. The NAACP was created in 1909. This time saw black Americans forming schools, churches, social welfare institutions, banks, African American newspapers, etc. From 1900 to 1970, the 2 Great Migrations existed when African Americans traveled from the South to the North, the Midwest, and the West Coast. They wanted to escape violence and terrorism to get equality, education, and economic stability. By the 1920s, the Harlem Renaissance existed with people like Aime Cesaire, Lois Milou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Langston Hughes, Nella Larsen, Claude McKay, Richard Wright, etc. The South Side of Chicago had its own Chicago Renaissance too. With the growth of organizations in groups like the Marcus Garvey's Universal Negro Improvement Association, the African Communities League, the Nation of Islam, the NAACP, and A. Philip Randolph's Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, African American strength is inspirational. Black owned businesses grew, and black people fought in WWI and in WWII. Madame C. J. Walker formed her business. 

The New Deal existed in a paradox. Morally, the New Deal was right to promote economic progressive values and investments as I am an economic progressive. People should have economic rights and a strong social safety net. The problem was that many black people were discriminated against to get the total blessings from the New Deal, and many black families were discriminated against back in the 1940s and the 1950s, plus beyond in getting adequate housing. Redlining is a reality. Many black people worked in the Roosevelt government like Mary McLeod Bethune, who heroically defended the rights of black people. By the time of the New Deal, more African Americans voted for the Democratic Party. Back in the day, Republicans had more black votes as they were seen as more progressive after Lincoln was President. That would change as more Democrats embraced civil rights by the 1960s. After WWII and during the 2nd Great Migration, the modern Civil Rights Movement existed from 1954 to 1968. Black people gained more non-stereotypical roles in Hollywood. Diverse civil rights activists and revolutionaries grew from Malcolm X, Dr. King, Ella Baker, Rosa Parks, Claudette Colvin, John Lewis, Septima Clark, and other people. From the Freedom Rides, the 1963 March on Washington, the Memphis Sanitation strikes, black people, including the black working class stood on business to defend their rights. Groups like the Black Panther Party, SNCC, and the Nation of Islam grew in the 1960s too representing the diversity of black intellectual thought and action. There has been debates on whether integration worked or not. The truth is more of a nuisance. Jim Crow apartheid is immoral, because it was about the usage of governmental policies that forced black people to have lax voting rights, restrictions on economic opportunities, and harm to basic human freedoms. Desegregation was promoted by us to not assimilate to white racist culture or eliminate our black identity. It was done to eliminate oppression and anti-black discrimination that harmed our black lives. After integration, there was the problem of many black institutions being gone, economic inequality growing, and this is because of many reasons. 

After the growth of automation, the Vietnam War, stagflation, and the loss of many manufacturing jobs, many large corporations promoted neoliberal economic policies (like laissez faire capitalism, shipping jobs overseas, cutting social programs, etc.) that harmed communities in America. There were the forces of oligarchy and the system of oppression using working-class people (especially black people) as scapegoats for pollution, economic problems, and other issues. Some people wanted more token comfort instead of true black liberation. Many people left poor areas without concern to help the poorest of black people. Also, many black people then and now have fought to give back to poorer black communities too. So, we don't need Jim Crow apartheid or the other extreme of total black assimilation to white validation. We don't need validation to white racist Eurocentric standards. We need to accept what God created us to be, being black (as black is Beautiful), help our people, and create more institutions that we control to benefit our black community collectively. So, we have the right to live where we want in a free and open society, but we also have every right to form our own black institutions and grow our black culture (that we control) to help our people. That is not evil. It's good.

For example, Greek Americans, Jewish people, Irish Americans, Latino Americans, Italian Americans, Arabic Americans, Polish Americans, Asian Americans, etc. have their own museums, cultural celebrations, businesses, film production groups, and other institutions, which they have the right to do. So, we have the God given right to promote our black culture and our black institutions without apology. Also, we won't hate our neighbor. All humans should be treated with dignity and respect as all human beings are created equal in the image of God. We, as black people, are the first people of the human race. The sacrifice of us black people in America laid a foundation for other people to have their rights today. That is what the sellouts don't understand, as they worship white racist people like George Washington, James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson (who were involved in the enslavement and genocide of black people and Native Americans. The sellouts readily make an idol of a flag in like the USA flag instead of honoring truth. I noticed that these sellouts hate Africa, dehumanize and scapegoat black single mothers for every problem in the black community, view black people as one monolith to be criticized in a derogatory fashion, abhor the greatness of the global black African Diaspora, and abhor the concept of Blackness too. The continent of Africa gave birth to humanity, and I do love Africa as an African American). 

Many folks have been brainwashed to embrace the MAGA cult like The Cartier Family, Charleston White, Tatum, etc. A sellout is a traitor who is untrustworthy like Anton Daniels, Jason Whitlock (both of them are sexists too. Jason Whitlock was sick to call Joy Taylor a sexist, colorist slur about her skin hue and body, but he claims to be a Christian. Whitlock said that he knows what he is capable of when describing Joy Taylor which is very creepy in Whitlock's part. White racists like Nick Fuentes called Whitlock a token when Whitlock agreed with many of his views. That shows that white racists hate black people because we are black irrespective of our ideological views), etc. who doesn't believe in the existence of systematic racism when structural racism has been proven by dozens of mainstream sociological studies. Why would anyone trust a person who don't have the dignity to stand up for the freedom of their own people or honor their own people? You can't. That is why it is important to promote black liberation, because we are entitled to our freedom by birthright. Representing our black identity and our Blackness is purely righteous and sacrosanct. Black people are glorious in our power, resiliency, and strength. 

The Post Civil Rights era existed in 1968 after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was unjustly assassinated. While more black people gained many political and social gains since 1968 (like Douglas Wilder, President Barack Obama, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, LeBron James, Oprah Winfrey who are mostly upper middle class and wealthy black people), but economic inequality has grown in many cases. Many working-class black communities still suffered the War on Drugs, police brutality, gentrification, and other evils via capitalistic exploitation, reactionary political policies, and racial oppression. Some black people, in many cases, moved into the middle class, and many poor black people suffer hardships. In other words, we black people have come a long way after many millennia of our human existence, but we have a long way to go in creating black liberation and true freedom and independence. In 2008, we saw Barack Obama become the first elected African American President in Untied States history, and we saw the growth a new anti-police brutality/anti-racism movement after Trayvon Martin and Ferguson. We see a new Great Migration when black Americans migrated from the North, Midwest, and the West to the South to Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, and even Maryland to get more economic opportunities in now desegregated southern cities. 

Now, many Southern cities have better race relations then many cities in the North, Midwest, and West Coast in an ironic fashion. From Beyonce's Formation celebrated to honor the Black Panthers' 60th anniversary to new forms of black expression (from podcasts, new STEM development, growing black comic book conventions, independent black films and TV shows, other forms of black media, etc.), the 21st century expression of Blackness is diverse and authentic. During the 21st century, many black people are legitimately opposed to imperialism, colonialism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, anti-black propaganda, colorism, featurism, ableism, ageism, lookism, and other evils still plaguing our world. I will tell you a secret. Watch what people do beyond what people say. In other words, if someone behaves in a disrespectful way, then don't emulate that behavior. Respect people who respect you. The real person is defined by their actions beyond a person's proclamations. Following morality is always justified. Develop a plan in life, follow your purpose, achieve your goals, be honest, improve yourself over time, stand up for yourself, defend your dignity as a human being (which means establish your boundaries), follow legitimate principles, treat people right (that means showing empathy and compassion to the suffering. A lot of people don't realize how blessed they are), exercise, eat healthy foods, show humor if you have a sense of humor (as we are not machines. Even God has a sense of humor in my view), grow emotional and social skills, develop your mind, embrace what is your identity, never hate on people, have discipline, if you are in a relationship never cheat or commit adultery (only cowards cheat or commit adultery), get advice when necessary, express your gifts, ignore the haters, and love truth always.

Following those previous advice will cause tons of blessings in your life guaranteed. Also, I do believe in Black Unity, reparations for African Americans, and Black Love (for all of the days of my life and forever, I will always be attracted to and love black women). Now, we see 2020 with the eve of the George Floyd protests. 

George Floyd's Unjust Murder

May 25, 2020, was when George Floyd unfortunately passed away. On that date, I was in my late 30s. It was a time of growth for the new generation of the Black Freedom Movement. It saw the end of the first stage of the Black Lives Matter movement, and we entered a new era of not only the Black Lives Matter movement. It was a new era in world history and black history, marked by an explosion of outrage and righteous indignation as people stood up for the dignity of black human lives. George Floyd was 46 years old in Minneapolis, Minnesota, living his life and providing for his family. He was arrested shortly after 8pm after being allegedly accused of using a fake $20 bill at a local Cup Foods store. There was a disturbing cellphone video that was later posted on Facebook. It displayed the last moments of his life. An officer pinned George Floyd to the ground with his knee on the back of Floyd's neck. He was unarmed and handcuffed. He was never a threat to any officer or anyone else in the vicinity, but the officers would get off his neck for more than 8 minutes. George Floyd said, "I can't breathe," but the officers, including Derek Chauvin, didn't care. People in the crowd tried to tell Chauvin to stop putting his knee on George Floyd's neck constantly without avail. George Floyd later went unconscious, and he died at a hospital. The video went viral, and America, plus the world, saw the truth of what had happened. 

The Aftermath

A daughter lost her father. No words can show the pain that the family of George Floyd is continuing to go through. Yet, you have sick people trying to justify what the police to Floyd and other innocent, unarmed black men, black women, and even black children. Say what you want about Dave Chappelle (Dave isn't perfect. I agree with Dave on many issues and disagree on other issues), but he was man enough to express legitimate outrage at the murder of a black man. The murderer Derek shouldn't just be blamed for this act of criminal act. The officer that stood by and did nothing to stop Derek are just as guilty as Derek is. Those other officers had an obligation to stop Derek immediately as he used murder because of ego not because of enforcing justice. The same hypocrites who mocked George Floyd's death are canonizing the racist Charlie Kirk as Kirk is the new John Wayne. Wayne was a brutal racist who didn't even want black people to control government unless they are proven "worthy" of having the role of government. Now, we have MAGA extremists using death threats against opponents of Trump and against anyone who legitimately disagrees with Kirk's views. Yet, we won't be intimidated by cowards as we will speak our minds as part of free speech. So, George Floyd's life mattered in this world. 

Worldwide Protests

The global George Floyd protests should be analyzed and honored as the largest anti-racism, pro-black human lives, and anti-police brutality protests in human history back in 2020. I was in my late 30s back then, and people were outraged at the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed African American man. The protesters wanted to promote the fight of African Americans to have civil rights, justice, police accountability, and true liberation. We know of the Watts rebellion in 1965 in Los Angeles (34 people, mostly African Americans, died during that situation). We know of the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion in response to the acquittal of police officers who used excessive force against the black American, Rodney King. The Black Lives Movement was created in 2013 after Trayvon Martin's killer was found not guilty in court. There was the 2014 shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, resulted in local protests and unrest, while the killing of Eric Garner in New York City resulted in numerous national protests. In 2015, the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore police custody resulted in rebellions in the city and nationwide protests as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. Several nationally publicized incidents occurred in Minnesota, including the 2015 shooting of Jamar Clark in Minneapolis; the 2016 shooting of Philando Castile in Falcon Heights; and the 2017 shooting of Justine Damond. In 2016, Tony Timpa was killed by Dallas police officers in the same way as George Floyd. In August 2019, Elijah McClain died after Aurora police ordered paramedics to administer ketamine under dubious circumstances. In March 2020, the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor by police executing a search warrant at her Kentucky apartment was also widely publicized. After Eric Garner and George Floyd repeatedly said "I can't breathe" during their arrests, the phrase became a protest slogan against police brutality. 

The first organized protests started on May 26, 2020, in Minneapolis. The vast majority of the protests nationally and internationally were peaceful. Some people used violence, and we all condemn violence against innocent people and against innocent property. Violence has nothing to do with self-defense or civil disobedience. It has to do with evil rebellion against goodness, being anti-social behavior. Rebellion against goodness is evil.  There were protests on May 27, 2020, in Memphis and Los Angeles. By May 28, protests had sprung up in several major U.S. cities with demonstrations increasing each day. By June, protests had been held in all U.S. states. At least 200 cities had imposed curfews, and at least 27 states and Washington, D.C., activated over 62,000 National Guard personnel in response to the unrest. In Seattle, starting in early June, protesters occupied an area of several city blocks after the police vacated it, declaring it the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, where, according to protesters, "the police are forbidden, food is free, and documentaries are screened at night." On June 11, President Trump challenged mayor Jenny Durkan and Governor Jay Inslee to "take back your city", and implying, according to Durkan, the possibility of a military response. 

On June 10, thousands of academics, universities, scientific institutions, professional bodies and publishing houses around the world shut down to give researchers time to reflect and act upon anti-Black racism in academia. Organizations involved with #ShutDownSTEM day included Nature Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the American Physical Society. On June 14, an estimated 15,000 people gathered outside the Brooklyn Museum at Grand Army Plaza for the Liberation March, a silent protest in response to police brutality and violence against black transgender women. Frustrated by the lack of media coverage over the deaths of Nina Pop, who was stabbed in Sikeston, Missouri, on May 3 and Tony McDade, who was shot by police in Tallahassee, Florida, on May 27, artist and drag performer West Dakota and her mentor, drag queen Merrie Cherry, decided to organize a silent rally inspired by the 1917 NAACP Silent Parade. The march generated widespread media attention as one of the largest peaceful protests in modern New York City history. On June 19, Juneteenth, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) shut down ports on the West Coast in solidarity with protesters. An educator from the University of Washington said that the union has a history of protest and leftist politics since its founding: "[The ILWU] understood that division along the lines of race only benefited employers, because it weakened the efforts of workers to act together and to organize together. The UAW also asked members to join the protests by standing down for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the amount of time Chauvin was initially reported to have held his knee to Floyd's neck.

On June 17, in response to the protests, three different police reform plans, plans from the Republicans, the Democrats, and the White House, were unveiled, aiming to curb police brutality and the use of violence by law enforcement. On June 25, NPR reported that the hopes for passage were doubtful because they were "short-circuited by a lack of bipartisan consensus on an ultimate plan [and] the issue is likely stalled, potentially until after the fall election." Protests continued over the weekend of June 19 in many cities, and observations of Juneteenth gained a new awareness. Jon Batiste, bandleader for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, took part in a Juneteenth day of protests, marches, rallies, and vigils to "celebrate, show solidarity, and fight for equal rights and treatment of Black people" in Brooklyn. Batiste also appeared in concert with Matt Whitaker in a performance presented in partnership with Sing For Hope, performed on the steps of the Brooklyn Public Library.

By the end of June 2020, more than 4,700 demonstrations had occurred in the United States—a daily average of 140—with an estimate of 15 million and 26 million total participants. Protests had occurred in over 40% of the counties in the United States. Protests in the aftermath of Floyd's murder were then considered the largest in United States history. As of July 3, protests were ongoing. On July 4, the Independence Day holiday in the United States, several protests were held, including in several cities where protests had been going on since the day after Floyd's murder. On July 20, the Strike for Black Lives, a mass walkout intended to raise awareness of systemic racism, featured thousands of workers across the United States walking off their jobs for approximately 8 minutes, in honor of Floyd. The theme for the March on Washington held in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 2020, was, "Commitment March: Get Your Knee Off Our Necks", a reference to Floyd's arrest by Chauvin. Over the Labor Day holiday weekend, which the Saturday marked 100 nights of protests since Floyd's murder, marches and rallies where held in many cities. In Miami, Florida, protesters on September 7, 2020, commemorated Floyd's murder and pressured local authorities to enact changes to policing policies, such as banning chokeholds during arrests. Protests continued in 2021, too like in Portland, New York City, etc.  There were protests on June 6-7, 2020, in Senegal, Australia, France, and in other places from Santa Monica to New York state. 

Protesters in London rallied outside the United States embassy on May 22, 2021. Protesters remarked that the Chauvin murder conviction was "a small amount of justice of what [George Floyd] really deserves." The protest was among of new set of peaceful protests in the United Kingdom to mark the one-year anniversary of Floyd's murder. On May 25, 2021, protesters took the streets in Germany and demonstrators took a knee in and raised their fists at rallies in Glasgow, London, and Edinburgh. Rallies were held outside U.S. Embassies in Greece and Spain. For some, the so-called "George Floyd effect" had demonstrators and activists connecting historic racism and social injustice to contemporary, local examples of police brutality. Movements spawned by Floyd's murder, which served as a catalyst, were still active in Australia, Brazil, India, Japan, New Zealand, Nigeria, United Kingdom, and elsewhere by May 2021. In Canada and France, where Floyd's murder initiated protests, activists were unsatisfied with the levels of reform made by officials at nearly a year after Floyd's murder.

In Australia, the Black Lives Matter movement sparked calls for white people to be more aware of race relations within the country. "Australia Day" is celebrated in the nation as the date the country was founded. The Black Lives Matter movement in Australia sought emphasis on acknowledging the colonial history of Australia; however, by changing "Australia Day" to "Invasion Day" in recognition of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who were massacred when the European settlement was established in Australia on January 26, 1788. There were protests in Japan, and Naomi Osaka expressed excitement about that reality. Naomi Osaka has a Haitian father and a Japanese mother. She is in favor of respecting black human lives and opposes police brutality. 

Reforms

After the murder of George Floyd, many people wanted change. Some attempts at reforms and some reforms existed during the aftermath of the historic 2020 protests. There were calls for more defunding and abolishing the police. That proposal would be controversial among many segments of the American population. Some wanted laws changed to protect human beings from police brutality. During the protests, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, at least 100 journalists have been arrested while covering the protests, while 114 have been physically attacked by police officers. Although some journalists have been attacked by protesters, over 80% of incidents involving violence against the news media were committed by law enforcement officers. The Committee to Protect Journalists has accused police officers of intentionally targeting news crews in an attempt to intimidate them from covering the protests. Some journalists covering the protests in Minneapolis had their tires slashed by Minnesota State Patrol troopers and Anoka County sheriff's deputies. During the week of May 30, 2020, 12 people, including protesters, journalists, and bystanders, were partially blinded after being struck with police projectiles. By June 21, 2020, at least 20 people had suffered serious eye injuries. The American Academy of Ophthalmology has called on police departments to stop using rubber bullets for crowd control, writing in a statement that "Americans have the right to speak and congregate publicly and should be able to exercise that right without the fear of blindness." More people had an awareness of the issues of school to prison pipeline and inequitable school funding. 

The events in 2020 made many people faced the issues of racial injustice, economic inequality, and police brutality. In June 2020, best-selling books were increasingly read about race. We saw more racist monuments being removed, scrutiny of, discussion of removal, and removal of civic symbols or names relating to the Confederate States of America (frequently associated with segregation and the Jim Crow era in the United States) have regained steam as protests have continued. On June 4, 2020, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam announced the Robert E. Lee Monument in Richmond would be removed. On June 5, making specific reference to events in Charlottesville in 2017, the United States Marine Corps banned the display of the Confederate Battle Flag at its installations. The United States Navy followed suit on June 9 at the direction of Michael M. Gilday, the Chief of Naval Operations. California Governor Gavin Newsom wanted new police crowd control procedures for the state and the banning of carotid chokeholds. The Minneapolis police department banned the police from using chokeholds along with the Denver police department. 

In June 2020, Democrats in Congress introduced the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020, a police reform and accountability bill that contains measures to combat police misconduct, excessive force, and racial bias in policing. The impetus for the bill were the killings of Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other African Americans at the hands of police. It passed the House of Representatives one month after Floyd's killing, 236 to 181, with support from Democrats and three Republicans. A Republican reform bill was blocked in the U.S. Senate by all but two Democrats; neither party negotiated the contents of the bill with the other. Speaker Nancy Pelosi summarized Democratic opposition to the Senate bill: "it's not a question that it didn't go far enough; it didn't go anywhere." On June 16, President Trump signed an executive order on police reform that incentivized departments to recruit from communities they patrol, encourage more limited use of deadly force, and prioritize using social workers and mental health professionals for nonviolent calls. The order also created a national database of police officers with a history of using excessive force. On September 10, Ted Wheeler, the mayor and police commissioner of Portland, Oregon, banned city police from using tear gas for riot control purposes, but reiterated that police would respond to violent protests forcefully. Portland had seen over one hundred consecutive days of protests since they began on May 28. The Brennan Center for Justice reported that in the year after the death of Floyd, over 20 states, including Maryland, passed legislation to address the use of force, the duty for officers to intervene in instances of police brutality, reporting requirements or officer decertification. 

The Backlash

Five years later, there has been a far-right MAGA backlash against any attempts to confront racism, police brutality, and economic inequality. This movement is like the Reagan movement on steroids, made up of at least 30 percent of the American population. Many MAGA supporters and closet Trump supporters, and some are hypocrites. Back in 2020, according to the Pew Research Center, 2/3s of American adults supported the Black Lives Matter movement. Almost 70 percent of Americans were talking about racial justice issues with their families and friends, and about 70 percent were recognizing tensions between the police and Black Americans. In 2025, we have a different story with an increased hostility to the BLM and any progressive discussion about racism. In 2025, hate crimes will be crimes with new school racists like the Proud Boys, Oathkeepers, the 5 Percenters, and other far-right people who desire no racial justice. Pro-Trump trolls regularly harass and threaten judges, progressives, black people, those in the Internet, and other people who disagree with the Trump agenda. It has gotten so bad that the Department of Justice under Trump's 2nd term announced that it was ending consent decrees and investigations of police terrorism in many cities, including Minneapolis. The myth that numerous white conservatives promote is that if we don't talk about race, then racism will go away. Racism will never go away until true education about the greatness of black people, structural oppression is abolished, and other actions are used to advance justice for real. Trump now has deleted black history facts on federal websites, wants the Washington Commanders to change its name to a racist slur against Native peoples, desires to abolish birthright citizenship, and seeks to cut out certain histories found in black museums nationwide. The White House issued an executive order aimed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, because the museum exposes systematic racism, the evil of the Maafa, the evil of the genocide of Native Americans, exposes the wickedness of white racism, and the desire of black people to be free from oppression. 

 

Continued Opposition to Tyranny

The myth now is that people are not fighting back against Trump's reactionary, retrograde policies. There had been a Day Without Immigrants protest in American cities in February 2025. By February 5, 2025, thousands of protesters gathered at state capitols for the American Opposition and 50501 protests to protest the policies and actions of the 2nd Donald Trump administration, in America. Many protesters marched in West Hollywood, California, on February 22, 2025, to oppose Elon Musk's DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) and the Trump agenda. There have been African Americans boycotting Target and other companies that promoted anti-DEI programs. We have a crisis in the black community. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, black men earn less than white men weekly if you place the data in a controlled analysis where both had the same qualifications in 2023. We have less home ownership now than we did in 1968, and about 300,000 black women were fired unjustly since April 2025 because of the rollbacks of DEI. That reality is wrong as black women's and black men's dignity must be respected. Also, many protesters in town halls have confronted pro-Trump Republicans on the bad budget law that promotes austerity, on the Epstein issue, on constitutional issues, and on other harm done to our democracy.

Conclusion

About five years ago, one of the biggest tragedies in black history and human history existed. It was the brutal and intense murder of George Floyd in the Midwest at Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was a hard worker and a father. He begged for his life crying out for his mother, but the officers showed no compassion or empathy for his suffering. Derek Chauvin placed his knee on his neck for over 8 minutes until he died. Chauvin, the murderer, was convicted in my opinion only because the evidence was so overwhelming that he was guilty. Unfortunately, many families of black victims of police brutality never have true justice in the world, regardless of video evidence existed or not. We live in a new generation where the crimes of the oligarchy and their agents are constantly recorded by social media. The Internet was created decades ago by DARPA, but the establishment never anticipated the grassroots and independent scholars using the Internet to give the truth to the people. Afterward, protests existed. The vast majority of the protests were peaceful. Some people did violence and vandalism which have no justification as many of the people who did it were agents provocateurs or straight up agents trying to discredit the movement for social justice and racial justice. 

The 2020 George Floyd protests were unique being the largest anti-police brutality and anti-racist protests in human history where people of every color stood up for black human lives from Minneapolis to Australia. This caused some reforms to exist, from body cameras to police regulations. Yet, with progress comes the backlash. The backlash is led by the MAGA movement to cut services to communities, to bash woke as a slur when it isn't, and to go about to harm civil rights and voting rights policies. The MAGA movement endorses restrictions to legal protests and prevented legal federal investigations into police departments with a known history of police misconduct. Trump is the head of this cult, and Trump wants any governmental workers and all Americans to pledge total allegiance to him, which is immoral. We have allegiance to our conscience, to the truth, to our God, to the legitimate parts of the U.S. Constitution, and to morality plus integrity. We have allegiance to righteousness, not to a President unconditionally, as we have the right to our independent thinking. So, we have a long way to go in 2025, but the truth is on our side. At the end of the day, we are inspired by the George Floyd movement to stand up against up against evil, speak truth to power, and defend the dignity of human lives. 

By Timothy