The House Judiciary Committee hearing on police brutality and racial profiling is still underway, with multiple witnesses and considerable discussion around the contents of the Justice in Policing Act that Democrats have recently unveiled in the House. Republicans have brought along witnesses to speak in defense of police actions, and spent much of the morning trying to confuse Americans about what it means to defund police departments. Meanwhile Democrats, and in particular Rep. Karen Bass, have done an excellent job in explaining the basics of what it means to restructure public safety.
But the stand-out moment of the morning came when Philonise Floyd, just off the plane from his brother’s funeral in Houston, addressed the room. "I have to be the big brother, because George is gone,” said Mr. Floyd. “I couldn't take care of George that day that he was killed, but maybe by speaking with you today to make sure that his death was not in vain. To make sure his name isn't just another name on a T-shirt ... on a list that just keeps growing."
It can’t be easy for any member of the Floyd family. They’re not just grieving, and not just reckoning with the completely justified anger they must feel against the man who brutally murdered a loved one in front of cameras, with obvious disdain for his suffering. George Floyd’s family has also been cast in the role of spokespeople for a race, and for a nation. They’re the country’s mourners-in-chief, the ones being asked to broker peace, and the center of the national discussion—and they didn’t ask for or want any of this. They’re coming into the public eye in the worst way possible, and handling it all with impossible grace.
Of course, they wouldn’t have to do this if the person charged with guiding the nation wasn’t huddled in a bunker tweeting divisive statements and defending violence. But … that is where we are.
George Floyd’s family has been a blessing to the nation, and a comfort—at a time when the nation should be comforting them. And that did not stop with Philonise Floyd’s opening statement before the committee.
I can’t tell you the kind of pain you feel when you watch something like that. When you watch your big brother, who you’ve looked up to your whole life, die. Die begging for your mom.
I’m tired. I’m tired of the pain I’m feeling now and I’m tired of the pain I feel every time another Black person is killed for no reason. I’m here today to ask you to make it stop. Stop the pain. Stop us from being tired.
As the hearing returns from its first recess, there will no doubt be discussion of the details of the proposed bill. And there will no doubt be further efforts from the Republican witnesses to confuse the public, complain about “rioting,” and paint the police as “heroes in uniform.” The count on the phrase “a few bad apples” is already up to eight, and cops on Sept. 11 have already been invoked three times—and that’s just opening statements.
But nothing else said is going to hit with the impact of the words from Philonise Floyd.
"George's name means something. You have an opportunity here today to make your names mean something too."