Black Lives Matter

Of course they do - as do all hues of human life. However the current outcry in the United States (mimicked elsewhere for a variety of good and bad reasons) is rightly about the unseemly death of George Floyd. The facts seem to be these: Floyd, a large black man was reported to police for trying to pay for groceries with a counterfeit banknote; he carried no weapon; upon his arrest he was bound but resisted efforts to put him in the squad car, avowing claustrophobia; the police in attendance then restrained him in the prone position, one officer placing his knee on Floyd's neck; the force applied by the detaining officer was such that Floyd died; passers-by filmed the imbroglio; after an inexplicable delay the restraining officer has been charged with third degree murder, a charge which alleges what we might loosely define as killing by criminal callousness, falling short of an outright intent to kill. Protests have ensued and these have degenerated into rioting and looting.

The rioting is wrong and affords an easy way out for those apologists for the senseless police actions.

But I will, in case it has eluded you (I doubt it has), nothing, I repeat nothing, can mitigate the sheer brazen immorality of the photo-opportunity schemed by the Commander in Chief of the United States. I reproduce the resulting image below. Be afraid America, be afraid the rest of us. Evil stalks the earth.