Publisher's Synopsis
GET YOUR KNEE OFF OUR NECKS is a DEMAND that not only speaks to the condition under which George Floyd was mercilessly murdered, but truly reflects the harsh reality that recognizes Africans freed from enslavement in America have for long been victimized particularly by ingrained institutional practices. W.E.B. Du Bois reminded, "This is how the system was designed" to control and mark the African as held in bondage and deemed inferior from the inception. This view encouraged a particular stigma still associated with being Black in this country profoundly epitomized recent Central Park incident of a young White woman, not wearing a mass and walking her dog without a leash, though signs were posted; she was yet being recorded by an innocent Black man 'bird-watching' at a distance who insisted she keep her distance in this time of Pandemic. Here, her actions underscore the psychological trauma and devastation meted out and represented in her and so many others' thinking, "All I have to say is, 'A Black man is harassing and threatening my life' and the police will come instantly to take care of him, in whatever manner.'" This is the fear that haunts daily life for the Black, especially, young men and women as, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, etc. Previously, though now trending, a young Black man, Elijah McClain, wearing a 'ski-mask' was stopped because he "looked suspicious" and, in three days he died of a heart attack and associated trauma resulting from his encounter with police. Apparently, para-medic administered a sedative they should not have given him. This is the callousness and disregard for Black Lives, from slavery days, Blacks psychologically painted and tainted as devoid of humanity, arising from the constructed American system with inherent racial bias as expressed in Black Codes, offering license to unleash terror on Black men, freed or enslaved. Such laws empowered police to view the Black, considered chattel, an animal without the attributes of humanity, a long-standing mental construct, designed to justify treatment meted out in callous and brutish tactics. This insensitivity or heartlessness is what killed George Floyd, Eric Garner, Amaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and other Blacks listed within. This cold-heartedness breeds fear the Black man feels in public but more in encounter with the police, forcing Black parents for generations to warn their young about how to act in public. In a unique turn of events, the brutishness in the unconscionable act that murdered George Floyd so inflamed human sensitivities, their sense of decency, their need to express empathy all within the philosophic construct of the fatherhood of god and the brotherhood of man, etc., led concerned Americans - Black, Brown, White, etc., - to take to the streets to express outrage against the long-practiced system that encourages the devastating psychological and social maltreatment of Blacks evident from 1619 to 2020. That sense of brotherhood, humanity, is what encouraged similar protest across the globe in support of Black human beings under siege. GET YOUR KNEE OFF OUR NECKS is a demand that examines reaction to George Floyd's death in "The Eulogy by Rev. Al Sharpton;" "Placard Signs" carried in protest demonstrations; People's "Comments on the Times," in response to White House effete leadership that yet, divides rather than unites the nation; some "Names of persons murdered by Police;" "Greetings to the Graduating Class of 2020;" "Reactions to the Murder of George Floyd;" and a number of "Articles" such as "Biden is not the Enemy," even "Obama for Biden," and "Ben, Bill and Don," equally "This Russian Thing," "Olympus has Indeed Fallen;" and "Rudy and the Art of the Con." Such discuss failed leadership on part of Donald Trump, inappropriate obstruct of justice, unquestioned by Bill Barr's Department of Justine in time of Carona-Virus Pandemic, crisis of racism, support for racists, generating protests across the
