Over the past few days, I’ve heard a number of complaints about hypocrisy and double standards in response to Henry Nowak. Some of them are, I think, unfair. No, prominent people have not “taken the knee” as they did in response to the George Floyd murder. However, that was a very specific symbolic response and as I’ve noted previously, there are significant differences between the George Floyd and Henry Nowak cases. Whilst both died in police custody and both said “I can’t breathe”, in Floyd’s case, he could not breathe because the policeman had his knee on him. He was directly killed by the officer’s actions.
However, yes, we might observe that people who were happy to talk about rage and refuse to condemn riots and demonstrations in 2020 are calling for calm and condemning “rage” today. I note too how personalities in the media can pivot between writing op ed opinion pieces taking political positions or framing interviews towards an agenda to claiming to be just asking the questions.
However, this cuts both ways. We might also observe that the very people talking of rage were those in 2020 condemned riots and called for calm. We might ask where they were when it came to the Birmingham Six, Orgreave or Hillsborough. We might wonder what they have had to say about complaints if police brutality from Afro-carribean communities over the years and what their view on the inner city riots of the early 80s and about 15 years ago was.
Truth be told, we all have our blind spots and we all have our tendencies to double standards. We should check them. We should be particularly aware of the risk of choosing narratives that fit our own prejudices.
Faithroots 