This week, John McWhorter and I are talking about George Floyd. Why this again, and why now? Both of us watched Liz Collin and JC Chaix’s new documentary, The Fall of Minneapolis, which brings to light some startling evidence about the circumstances surrounding Floyd’s death and Derek Chauvin’s conviction on murder charges. The film showcases previously unreleased body cam footage from the police’s encounter with Floyd and evidence deemed inadmissible by the Chauvin trials judge that, John and I believe, renders the commonly accepted narrative about Floyd’s death incoherent. The documentary is free to watch online, so you can judge for yourself. But we both came away convinced that, absent further evidence to the contrary, Chauvin was likely not responsible for Floyd’s death.
As John says, we’ve been lied to about George Floyd. The event on which the “racial reckoning” of 2020 was founded did not go down the way we’ve been led to believe. Cities descended into riots, law enforcement was delegitimized, the “religion” of antiracism took hold of American institutions, and for what? Evidence this stark ought to be enough to convince any rational person to at least reconsider the story we’ve been told. Will it be enough? I’d like to say that, inevitably, the “poetic truth” of George Floyd’s death will fall to the truth, backed by evidence and reason. But we all know there is nothing inevitable about it. It’s going to take effort to rewrite the narrative of George Floyd and Derek Chauvin. Let’s hope there are enough of us with the stomach and the nerve to pick up our pens.
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0:00 A new documentary about George Floyd’s death raises new questions
5:42 John: “We’ve been lied to” about George Floyd’s death
14:27 The price of a “poetic truth”
20:09 Was the Derek Chauvin jury intimidated into delivering a guilty verdict?
23:26 Glenn: George Floyd was no hero
29:03 The burning of Minneapolis’s 3rd Precinct
34:54 Is there any hope of changing the George Floyd narrative?
41:48 Who will take responsibility for changing things in black America?
Recorded December 2, 2023
Links and Readings
Glenn and John’s May 2020 episode, “Cops and Race”
Liz Collin and JC Chaix’s documentary, The Fall of Minneapolis
Eli and Shelby Steele’s documentary, What Killed Michael Brown?
Coleman Hughes’s forthcoming book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America
John McWhorter – The Truth about George Floyd's Death