Guilty!

Still a sad day but the prosecution team did a superlative job securing the convictions. For that I’m thankful.

RIP all.

Ahmaud Arbery's murderers are awaiting trial.  I believe that some aspects of Breona Taylor's accidental death are still being litigated.  Philando Castille, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice each died on July 6, 2016 or earlier.  I would not hold my breath.

RIP Dave Patrick Underwood, Chris Beaty, Marvin Francois and David Dorn.

RIP (in the last 20 days alone) Chad Walker, Billy Evans, James Kouski, Christopher Wilson Knight, Jim K. Smith and David Parde.

And what took them so long?

Dude, you are the king of “If you aren’t with me you are against me”.  How about ponying up $20k to the MLK Boys and Girls Club.

That’s right.  Violence, vandalism, destruction...all OK.  A civilized discussion would be refreshing.  irimi the voice of reason and the middle?  Just not gonna happen☹️

Seemingly alarming amount of violence toward African-Americans?  What does "seemingly" mean to you, and who was being violent?

In the 5 1/2 months before George Floyd was murdered, six African-Americans had died in confrontations with police.  That includes Breona Taylor, who tragically died as a result of one of the worst-executed warrants in American history.  And it includes Manny Ellis, who it seems to me probably died from a ingesting a necessarily fatal amount of meth.

Those numbers pale in comparison to numbers that we were seeing five and more years before.

I believe that almost everyone who saw the George Floyd video were horrified and outraged.  And almost everyone wanted justice.  The difference is that some people actually were patient and allowed justice to happen and others in the I want it know generation joined in unnecessarily violent riots and were accomplices to death, destruction and general mayhem.  And today's verdict make that foregoing crystal clear.  Every riot was unnecessary.  Every building that burned down was unnecessary.  Every child shot at a Wendy's was unnecessary.  Every great guy who was shot to death while checking in on a nearby business was unnecessary.  The protests and riots only served to alienate and enrage the other side of the conversation.  Rioters successfully removed everyone's focus from the true villain in this situation and how we should fix it so that it is never repeated and cluttered that focus with new villains.  It muddied the water.  It alienated and angered people, who were initially horrified and outraged and refocused people's attentions onto rioters and their terrible actions.

Hells bells.  The ground floor of my firm was basically destroyed.  There are parts of downtown that are still unoccupied and in shambles almost a year after the fact as a result.  And why when the result was going to be a guilty verdict?

I believe that Derek Chavin being found guilty is a good thing.  That is not the country moving in the right direction.  That is the system already in place working like it should.  I am happy that the system worked like it should.  I am unhappy that so many fires had to start and so many people had to be assaulted and die to get us here.  I am unhappy that $2 billion in property damage had to result and several other people had to be injured and die.  What a complete and utter unnecessary waste of money, time, resources and human life in general.  Why the hell did 5+ months of riots have to mar what should have been an otherwise great day?

To be 100% honest, as of right now, I am far more unhappy about the gross and unnecessary BS overreaction to George Floyd's murder than I am happy that Derek Chauvin was found guilty.  Maybe one day everything will be rebuilt and things will get back to normal, and my feelings may change.  I would love for that to happen.  We'll see.

Let’s just say that I am more seasoned. Last year, what you guys thought of me mattered to me. Personal attacks and attributing things to me that I didn’t say mattered. I’ve learned better. I know that this is SOP for this board of un-likeminded individuals.

Never have I said that all cops are bad. That is asinine. I do believe that the police force needs to be restructured, officers need more education, and on-going training shouldn’t simply be done at the firing range. When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. 

I disagree about the old adage that two wrongs don’t make a right. When a people is oppressed what other recourse is there? Look at colonial America. The Boston Tea Party surely wasn’t a “right.” It was wrong to dump the tea overboard. Acts of defiance can sometimes make the oppressor realize their wrong. Go back to Exodus. What were the plagues if not a second wrong?

Still, it is important that we listen to the Black voices in our community and in our nation. It isn’t rare to hear good, honest Black people talk about their run-ins with the police when they have done nothing wrong. It was called Racial Profiling back in the 90s but it seemed to fall out of style after 9/11 when it was sort of “necessary” to profile. 

As far as faith is concerned, for 10 years I was in and around Catholics seven days a week—sort of behind the curtain in an OZ sort of way. I’ve seen the good, the bad, the ugly, and the hypocrisy. It was stomach-turning enough to push me away from the Church and reexamine what it all means. Still, I understand the human need for something like religion—there have been religions ever since the dawn of time. So no, I am not Christian, and yes, I understand the religion far too well. Yes, you have the freedom to believe what you wish—I simply wish that religion would take a smaller and more private role in this country.