George Floyd Action In SF's Fillmore

On Saturday, May 22, I joined people gathered at 1390 Fillmore St At O'Farrell in SF to mark the one year Anniversary of George Floyd's death and the subsequent global uprising against racial injustice and killer cops.

The rally was sponsored by The United Father's Coalition/Black History & The New Generation, and coordinated by Reverend Grays. On that bright blustery afternoon we held up signs like one for Breonna Taylor of Louisville, KY, shot to death by cops in her own home, and shouted, "Say her name!"

Passersby chorused back and drivers got on their horns, including those of the #22 buses, which passed frequently in both directions.

Reverend Grey reported that these get-togethers had been happening since last November.

Amidst these activities music like Marvin Gaye/s "What's Goin' On?" and Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come" lifted our spirits.

There was also an open mic, which gave me the opportunity to read from my book The Disaster Diaries, which came out last year.

It went something like this: "Breathless"

"What I thought was my final Disaster Diaries Entry was on May 24, 2020.

"But George Floyd's murder by white sadists of the Minneapolis PD on Memorial Day, the 25th, was to give another dubious holiday a whole new meaning.

"As the whole world virally came to witness Big George's breath stilled and his existence crushed while he called out for his mother, his last word's echoed the centuries old refrain that marked Eric Garner's five year's earlier, 'I can't breathe!, as racist cops claimed they were just doing their jobs.

"Simultaneously thousands dying as respirators, should they even have them, were withdrawn from their ravaged lungs, received little notice, lost as they were in the global battle against C19. We weren't able to see or hear much about their deaths except in cumulative numbers.

"But in death George Floyd became larger than life, sparking uprisings by millions who refused to stay home and play it safe because they knew that lethal violence was lurking just outside their doors, ready to burst in at any minute to commit murder, rape, torture and desolation.

"And so the cries of 'Black Lives Matter!' circled the globe, while stone cold representations of racist regimes came crashing down.

"Our collective respirations were sweeping away all the livid lies, rabid repressions and hideous horrifications of Massa's ill representation of reality that had been shoved down our throats all out lives.

"Until. after this revolutionary venting shook the riddled foundations of a world built on shackles, whips and lynchings by motherfuckers, there was a pause, and then a collective exhaling. declaring:

"This time, the promise is, we're not going to stop until its all dead and gone!"

July 17, 2020