The Recent Events in Minnesota With The Killing of George Floyd
The Killing of George Floyd and The Recent Events in Minnesota
So today we’ll be talking about recent events that have taken place in Minnesota with the killing of George Floyd. He was pinned down by a white policeman on the ground and he was killed while pleading and begging for his life and for most of us we are looking on in absolute terror and absolute horror and we’re wondering how is it we have reached this place again when we seem to have been moving forward? So I want to touch on this a little bit today because I have been heartbroken by
these recent events. I have had my children you know coming to me as many of you are as well, coming to me and asking mommy what’s going on in the world? Why are black people suffering? Why do people hate us? and as a mother as a parent, it’s heartbreaking and this isn’t the first time this has happened. There is Breonna Taylor, there are several cases that we have gone through and the heartbreak comes over and over again and it seems to be never-ending and I’m calling upon each and every one of us regardless of our race to take a look deep inside of us to do whatever we can to drive humanity forward to stomp out racism to support each other because in order to have holistically wealthy communities we need to have prosperity, we need to have peace, we need to have justice, we need to have communities where we have trust we can trust our law enforcement officers, we can trust each other, we can have time to plan our lives to move forward.
I can tell you that as an Economist, the economic social fallout of this is for generations to come just generations it is deep and black communities have been suffering through COVID-19, black communities have experienced the most losses in terms of loss of life and in terms of health impacts even the ones have who have recovered. I’ve heard cases where they will never fully recover because they have
underlying health conditions and then of course we’re dealing with this again. You know just this morning I got up and I saw Michelle Obama weigh in on this situation and she said you know we’re going to have to do the uncomfortable work all of us black, and white no matter our race to stomp out racism. We’re going to have to dig deep and get uncomfortable and start these conversations and not sugarcoat it but get comfortable with it and there’s one quote that Arianna Huffington pulled out of my book Holistic Wealth, and she posted it on her social media accounts and I just want to go back to that
quote because since the death of George Floyd, I have been thinking about that quote as someone who lost a husband at a very early age because we see the images of young black men these black men are dying at a higher rate at a younger age they’re leaving behind women and children and it has deleterious consequences so I’m just going to highlight this quote that Arianna Huffington pulled from my book Holistic Wealth, because I think this is
poignant and this is a quote for the moment: “Our education system teaches about linearity not about what to do when this linear pattern breaks, not where to look for resilience, not the art of recovery from disruption, knowledge that you are living your life well is our resource that you can draw well into your final hours”. So that’s from my book Holistic Wealth those were words that I wrote when there was so much disruption around me, when my husband died, and this is disruption that’s taking place in the black community over and over and over again and so where to look for resilience how to recover from the art of disruption is basically what holistic wealth is about and basically why we need holistically
wealthy communities and there’s another quote after that quote in the book that I also just want to highlight here because I want to challenge all of us during this time to dig deep and to really be honest with ourselves if we’re happy with the world we’re living in and how we can go forward. so choreographer and director bill T Jones who was awarded the National Medal of Honor in 2014 by President Barack Obama choreographed a dance and later gave his memoir the same title last night on earth and he in the dance he speaks to the audience directly from the stage and he says what time is it can you at this moment look in the mirror and be alright with it, are you doing what you want to do right have you located your passion as if this is your last night on earth and I want to challenge all of us moving forward with the events that have happened you know children are at home they’re watching these images they’re at home and they’re not at school for six to seven hours of the day anymore they’re doing their online learning at home they’re seeing the TV and they’re seeing all of these images and I want to challenge all of us to do whatever we can do to create a world that we can be proud of to leave for generations to come you know in holistic well I say that or actions have consequences for all of us they have holistic wealth ripple effects and even though sometimes you may live in a community I may live in a community were not being affected you may live in another country you may live on another continent but we’re all being affected when as human beings we are suffering and we’re seeing those images and we know those are our brothers and sisters so I just want to reach out to challenge all of us to do what we can to employ empathy justice to help one another to care for one another and really do what we can to do to increase each other’s holistic wealth bank account at this time there is collective grief a lot of us were already grieving through cvoid : 19 and lots of you lost family members I did too and now we’re grieving what’s happening in the black community we need to reach out we need to help each other and you need to have empathy really listen to the concerns of those who are voicing it really taking it to heart and really looking at what we need to do to support each other and to drive humanity forward you.
The Killing of George Floyd and The Recent Events in Minnesota