George Floyd ‘was wrong too’ – Taibu

Former Zimbabwe Test captain Tatenda Taibu has weighed in with controversial comments around the killing of a black man, George Floyd by the police in the US.

Via his Twitter account Taibu said:

America is in a mess.
Now Americans want the street to be name after Floyd. My my my.!!! What the policeman did was wrong. However, the story started with a fake bank note. Black or white, that is wrong too.
There’s a difference between a hero and a victim.

The comments by Taibu will be seen as problematic if not troubling.

While he says what the police did was wrong, apportioning blame to a victim of deadly police violence which has resulted in the arrest and murder charges being levelled against them.

What is more, the suspicion of knowingly using counterfeit money less than $1,000 is up to one year in prison and a fine up to $3,000 in Minessota.

The issue that will be raised is not about whether there was reasonable suspicion for George Floyd to be stopped by the police. It is whether murdering a black man for being suspected of a crime is appropriate. If a white nationalist who murdered 12 people in a church is alive in prison today but Floyd is dead, how can there be a false equivalence pushed between a murder and a suspected petty crime?

Whether Floyd was guilty or not is not the case (reports say the note turned out not to be fake), but it is the disproportionate use of violence in such scenarios targeted at black people in the US.

That until now, the death of a black man at the hands of the police has not resulted in charges is the issue here. A huge roster of black people killed by police exists with no justice served for the victims.

And whether they want to remember Floyd by naming a street after him, that is up to them. There are laws and roads named after victims of crime in the US. That this is a flashpoint that people in that country want to recognise for a fight that they have to live every single day is entirely up to them.

The issue is not whether people should not be policed. It is that policing should be compassionate for black people.

Taibu’s comments could be problematic indeed.