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Alternative Perspective on the Deification of George Floyd: ‘Where Is My Memorial?’

Reporter

The Niagara Falls Reporter is committed to publishing alternative views on a variety of topics. This includes things that may not be politically correct or run afoul of Google ‘censorship’ algorithms. That George Floyd was murdered by police seems pretty obvious. That his death, fortunately captured on camera, has sparked a nationwide debate on police brutality and racial bias is for the public good. That Floyd should be canonized or given attributes that he almost certainly did not possess in life may be a natural outcome of this debate for it seems every cause needs a common love as well as a common hate.

But I think it is reasonable to give voice to those who think his memorial, or at times seemingly near deification [as a martyr] may be excessive. There were other martyrs, some of them far braver. George Floyd, though a tragic victim, was never once known for any brave act. In fact his life seems to have been one of a series of cowardly acts.

This is not to impugn a dead man, or diminish his pain, but it is entirely maudlin and false to misrepresent him as a hero. He was not a saint. That society can use his victimization to improve police behavior and the public’s relationship with police is a happy accident that arose out of the tragic death of a poor, sick, and benighted victim.

Should George Floyd be depicted as an angel, or a saint with a halo? Or was he a very flawed, and likely a drug addicted, sick man, with violent criminal acts in his past, who was also a murder victim?

Should people emulate George Floyd? His life was clearly sordid and checkered. [Including a home invasion and pointing a gun to the stomach of a pregnant woman]. Should we hold him up as a hero?  While mourning his tragic death and the stark reality that police have been brutalizing people for years [because they can] one should not lose sight of the fact that Floyd was a troubled individual right up to the day of his death.

Truer memorials should show the police in their murderous act atop poor George Floyd and not merely images of a sanctified Floyd.

This poem was submitted to me by a resident of Niagara County.

Where is Mine – An Alternative Perspective – For What It’s Worth

By I. Y. Dare

Where is my memorial?

I died and was sent home in a bag

Where is mine?
I stormed the beach at Normandy and died at nineteen
Where is mine?
I was a police officer shot while seated within my patrol car
Where is mine?
I was pulled from my vehicle and beaten to the blood
Where is my memorial?
worked thirty-five years to raise a business; burned to the ground within an hour
Where is my memorial?
I died screaming leaping from a tower of flaming steel
Where is mine
I burned within the churches of Atlanta
Where is mine?
I died hanging from a tree – strange fruit indeed –
Where is my memorial
I died in Korea; never found

Where is mine?
I died in a storm of napalm at twenty one
Where is my memorial?
I died with thousands of others in a mushroom cloud
Where is my memorial?
I died at the age of seven in a village within a jungle; soldiers used flame throwers and grenade
Where is my memorial?
I died at a place called Auschwitz with millions of others
Where is mine?
I died at a place called Gettysburg wearing blue – my brother wearing gray –
Can you not smell the ferric odor of irony @ one singular result of the apocalypse?
Where is my memorial?
I died at a place called Wounded Knee – some called it a massacre – some called it manifest destiny
No one looted or burned a city or took a knee to mourn any of us
No one called for “justice”
Justice was served cold and as a semi-sterile, abrupt and shameful euphemism proclaiming “war to be hell”
I died to bring Eternal Life to ALL Men through the Forgiveness of sin –
I guess few were listening –
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