“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” ― Edmund Burke
The recent murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis is a byproduct of two major truths that will likely become more evident throughout my lifetime.
The first truth is that coronavirus exacerbates existing inequalities and disunity within a society. When fewer people are working, more people have time for rioting. It’s that simple.
The second truth is that the USA is a racist state which actively suppresses and exploits its black citizens; who are usually the descendants of actual slaves. We should be very worried about where this ends up.
The degree of the racism present is evident from the silence from the wealthy, white US-based investment professionals, business leaders and commentators that I tend to follow. With a few exceptions, wealthy white leaders have not bothered to express any sorrow, anger or despair about the way that white police regularly kill black citizens.
This silence sits in contrast to their willingness to tweet constantly about just about anything, from squee praise for winning investments, to life advice on how to behave as a professional; from epidemiology through cryptocurrency, and then all the way to trade policy.
Yet these broadly informed multifarious opinion profferers are silent when it comes to police arbitrarily murdering citizens in the land they call free.
This conspiracy of silence is evidence of the fact that they correctly believe that so many of their colleagues, clients and potential clients are racists, that it would be unwise to pin their colours to the mast, even if they detest racism themselves.
The only redeeming factor is that their complete silence is better than making it publicly known that their primary concern is the riots, rather than the racism that leads to them. But I’ve no doubt that for many that is the case.
In this story, cops are definitely the bad guys. In the interests of balance, here’s what a good cop says: