It is easy for some to say that the Minneapolis police officer who killed George Floyd was an outlier, not representative of his own department, much less police in general. But he was representative enough – of a streak in police, and in society, that still regards people of color as second-class beings, not worthy of full respect.
It is a poisonous streak, one that keeps America from overcoming its original sin of racism, begun 401 years ago when slaves were brought to Kentucky’s mother state of Virginia. That sin was compromised in the Constitution that unified the states and made a reality of the Declaration of Independence – while making a mockery of the line that all of us are created equal.
Charles Booker
We fought a civil war over that, and slavery lost. Discrimination did not. A hundred years later, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 largely ended discrimination. But laws do not change human hearts. Events do more.
In recent years, a series of police killings of African Americans brought many protests and some local changes but no national action. Then the cell-phone video of Floyd’s killing – eight minutes and 46 seconds of slow-motion horror too lengthy and explicit to be dismissed or forgotten – has caused a tectonic shift in the political landscape.
NASCAR has banned Confederate flags. Gov. Andy Beshear is getting the Jefferson Davis statue out of its place of honor the state Capitol. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has asked the only black Republican senator to draft a police-reform bill, one that will be weaker than the House’s but still acknowledge the new political reality.
The movement goes beyond police, beyond the criminal-justice system, to a realization by many white Americans that the Civil War hasn’t been properly put to bed. A few days after Floyd’s death, 71 percent of whites in a Monmouth University poll said racial and ethnic discrimination is a big problem; in January 2015, only 51 percent did. And those numbers are not just a reaction to Floyd’s death; Gallup polling shows Americans’ concern about race relations rising since 2014.
Kentucky hasn’t had to confront racial questions as much as most states because African Americans are a small share of the state’s population (now 8.4%) and have had relatively little political power, Louisville being the main exception. Hundreds of thousands of Kentuckians probably don’t really know a person of color, and lack of knowledge leads to fear, which can lead to hate.
But in the last week, in Kentucky towns and counties where racism has long been a part of the culture, we have seen protests of racial injustice. They got some local pushback, but it’s clear things are changing.
Al Cross (Twitter @ruralj) is a professor in the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Media and director of its Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues. His opinions are his own, not UK’s. He was the longest-serving political writer for the Louisville Courier Journal (1989-2004) and national president of the Society of Professional Journalists in 2001-02. He joined the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame in 2010.
NKyTribune and KyForward are the anchor home for Al Cross’ column. We offer it to other publications throughout the Commonwealth, with appropriate attribution.
One measure of that change could be the votes of Democrats in this month’s U.S. Senate primary for state Rep. Charles Booker of Louisville, an African American who has been tear-gassed in the city’s protests about the police killing of Breonna Taylor, and other injustices. The national movement has made him the candidate of the moment, in a primary with fellow progressive Michael Broihier of Lincoln County and superbly funded, more moderate Amy McGrath.
Booker is on paid television with a good spot and seems likelier to capture left-of-center voters than does Broihier, but the latter also has a good ad that likewise attacks McGrath for campaigning as pro-Trump – both alluding to her pitch that McConnell has kept the president from cutting drug prices and “draining the swamp.”
Broihier acknowledged that Booker is better positioned for the moment, but said the national movement has validated the cornerstone of his own campaign, “economic and social justice for all,” as he said in his opening social-media ad long ago. He says he’s sticking with his grass-roots campaign in mostly rural counties, arguing that the key to beating McConnell in November is taking back some of the rural base the senator has built up over 36 years, “and that translates to the primary.”
McGrath campaign manager Mark Nickolas said Booker’s moment reminds him of McGrath’s two years ago, when she beat Democratic establishment candidate Jim Gray in the 6th District congressional primary partly because of the “MeToo” movement.
“Campaigns are about the moment,” Nickolas said. “It has certainly . . . elevated him in a way he was unable to elevate himself because of lack of resources.” Still, he noted that Jefferson County has only 21 percent of the state’s registered Democrats, and “You have to be able to appeal to a much broader audience.”
Don’t those rural protests show Booker has broader appeal? “Just because I care about social justice doesn’t mean I want X candidate,” Nickolas said. But those folks want something, and for now Booker may be their tribune.
