Say his name!  George Floyd!

Say his name!  George Floyd!

Say his name!  George Floyd!

I go to sleep every night and wake up every morning with this chant repeating in my mind.  As we might expect from the African American community, whose music is imprinted in our collective psyche, these words capture the whole story.

When people are not called by their individual names, when painted with the broad stroke of prejudice, they are inevitably, in every culture, mistreated.  This week, they are speaking out and teaching the country how to treat them: say our names, don't look away, don't let the bad cops get away with killing us. 

I've been listening to Keisha Bottoms, the mayor of Atlanta;  Gene Robinson;  Martin Luther King III;  the Episcopalian bishop of Washington, D.C.; John Meecham; David Brooks,  and many other activists, political leaders, historians, writers....

Smart and caring people have a frame of reference, a perspective, connections with each other and other good people of the past. They read, listen, study, and ask questions.  They appreciate the humanities.  Some follow a religious tradition.  They laugh and they cry.

Keisha Bottoms, mayor of Atlanta, quotes Audre Lorde, poet and activist: "Your silence will not protect you. I am deliberate and afraid of nothing."

John Meecham, the brilliant (and usually restrained) Presidential historian, compares the current occupant-of-the-White-House (I refuse to call him president) with Nixon: "Trump makes Nixon look like Mr. Rogers."

Martin Luther King III echoes his father as Civil Rights Leader.

The Episocopal Bishop in Washington decries Trump's mockery of a spiritual tradition by doing a photo op at St. John's Church, holding up the Bible as a prop, while enacting the opposite of the words in that book.

We have a man in the White House who calls American mayors and governors "weak" and who calls Putin on the day of the murder of George Floyd.  All we have to do to see into Trump's  mind is to listen to what he calls other people.  His projections are transparent.   He praises himself profusely and "takes no responsibility"--but other people, according to the "stable genius," are stupid, weak, fake, bad, and crazy.