Forum from the Archives: Remembering George Floyd and the Racial Reckoning He Sparked
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From KQED. From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Nina Kim. Coming up on Forum, we look at where the struggle for racial progress stands five years after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

The brutality of that moment prompted millions of Americans and many around the world to take to the streets to protest racism and police violence. Robert Samuels joined us last month to contemplate the backlash to that racial reckoning of 2020 and where the fight for racial justice goes from here. Samuels is the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book. His name is George Floyd. Forum is next. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Five years ago this month,

We were just a couple months in to the start of the coronavirus pandemic. We were still reeling from the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot while jogging during the day in a Georgia suburb, and from the police killing in her home of Breonna Taylor, a Kentucky medical worker. Then on May 25th, a horrified crowd watched as a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled for more than nine minutes on the neck of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man.

Listeners, what do you remember about that time and the effect that moment had on you? Robert Samuels, who co-authored with Tolu Olorunipa the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, His Name is George Floyd, is with us to mark five years since Floyd's murder. He's Enterprise reporter for The Washington Post. Robert, welcome back to Forum. Thank you for having me on again. It's good to hear from you.

I was thinking about this time and your closeness to Floyd's story and how it must fill you with a complicated mix of feelings. Or does it? It does. George Floyd was a person that I never knew. I never had the privilege of knowing. But he was a man who I learned to gather a great feeling about through interviewing people.

Almost all of his siblings, all six of his siblings were interviewed in our book. His friends, his family, his lovers. And the conclusion that I came to personally was that he was a person who deserved much more grace in this country than he got due to his resilience and persistence in the American spirit.

It's hard to watch people try to mangle what happened to him as is happening in conservative circles about the nature of his murder, sort of confusing what we saw. And it's hard to think about what his legacy is. When we last talked, a lot of that was still in flux. There was a country that still really held on to this fervent belief that now was the time

to undo some of the systemic racism that we saw in this country. That's not the condition we're in today. So it's a very complicated time. Yeah, I want to go through all of that with you this hour. Living with the Floyd story had such a profound effect on you that actually I was surprised to learn or maybe relearn that when you had first heard of it, the killing of a black man in Minneapolis, you tried to steer clear of covering the story. Why?

Because I thought I knew what the ending was going to be. And I think that was because I had covered racial justice protests in Ferguson and Baltimore. I had been around communities in which heinous things had happened, places like Ferguson, places like Newtown and in Dallas when there were mass shootings there.

And I recognized the unique challenges that it has on a reporter and on a reporter's spirit. And I think also for me, at the time when I saw other journalists being manhandled by the police, it reminded me of a time in which I was manhandled by police at a Trump rally in Louisville, Kentucky. And so my first instinct was to really stay away from this story. But

As the days went on, I realized that this ending might not be what I had anticipated. And that was because there were so many people who were riven by what the video they had seen that was captured by Darnella Frazier. And that so many people in my personal life, a number of my friends who are white, were reaching out trying to figure out how to do better. And

I thought to myself, well, maybe in trying to uncover some greater truth about George Floyd, we can not only remember who he was and avoid reducing him to a simple name or hashtag, but maybe if we learn more about his story and the pressures that he faced before he died as he lived as a black man in America,

we could learn something about our society and maybe help unlock some of these big questions about what systemic racism is, how it operates, and whether or not it exists. Yeah. Can you remind us of some more of those remarkable and unexpected ways people and the country reacted? I remember conservative politicians and there were institutions of power and government and business that wanted to respond as well.

Well, let's even start on the most basic human level, Mina. I think the first thing that I noticed was my Venmo account started getting more money because there are people I knew who, you know, said racism exists. We're sorry. Go buy yourself a cup of coffee, which was strange, but it showed an instinct to want to do something.

And then after that, right, you kind of look at like what was happening in the corporate sphere. You saw all these companies making pledges to improve diversity and equity efforts in their companies. The tally that was done at the Washington Post was up to $50 billion, more than $50 billion, rather, per year.

of money was promised for diversity efforts from companies across the country. You saw people like Lindsey Graham and Mitt Romney taking active interest in trying to do police reform measures and trying to do things to level the playing field between Blacks and whites in this country. And so you saw it on the personal level, on a societal level. You saw it on a political level. You also saw it on a global level, right?

We saw Aboriginal communities in Australia and New Zealand compare their treatment to what had happened in George Floyd. You saw the similarities between Palestinians who live in the West Bank and sort of using his story to highlight their troubles. You saw it in places like Kenya and in South Africa where people talked about police brutality there. So there was a large concern. There was rarely a moment

where there was such a singular focus on racial justice in this country. At that point, George Floyd was the third most searched and tweeted person in the world behind Donald Trump and Joe Biden. It's hard to imagine now, but the entire world, given the conditions of the pandemic, was really fixed on this case. Yeah. Listeners, what do you remember about

That time, Floyd's murder, the days and months that followed. And what is your reaction to the backlash? Where do you think the country is today on addressing racism and police violence five years after Floyd's death? You can tell us by emailing forum at kqed.org.

Finding us on Blue Sky Facebook, Instagram, and Threads and posting at KQED Forum. You can call us at 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786. So, Robert, many have written about why this police killing of a black person created this reaction because sadly they were not unique. And I'm wondering where you've landed on that. I think it was a mix of things. One was

was the state of the world. The fact that there is not much going on. We're still in the throes of the pandemic. People are staying home. There wasn't much entertainment. So people had the chance to focus on the brutality. And I think the second thing was the nature of what they saw.

right, that this video came from a bystander. And on that video, you could see the very symbolism of what Black communities had been said had been happening to them for ages. You saw the nonchalant look of an agent of the state ignoring the calls for mercy from a person of color, while

crowd watched. Now, George Floyd, he always believed in angels. He always said he had angels watching over him.

And on that day, the people who know him said, well, if I didn't believe it then, I believed it today. Because the people who are narrating what was happening for the world were really informed narrators. You had one man who was an MMA fighter who could recognize the fact that Derek Chauvin's use of the knee was choking and killing him.

You had an EMT officer who just happened to be there when we talked to her. She told us she had gone out for an ice cream cone that day and to take pictures of some flowers. And she winds up seeing this. You had her narrating and saying, "Please take his pulse. You're killing him. I demand you take the pulse." You had a 16-year-old person who was used to the ways of social media and knew what she saw was wrong.

And because you had that real-life testimony, I think it amplified the cruelty and heinousness of what we were seeing. Listener Betty on Instagram writes, the events after the loss of George Floyd are burned into my memory forever. Prayers for his family. Robert, how did you feel personally when you saw the country's reaction, when you saw the protest movement swell? Yeah.

By the nature of being American, and I think by the nature of understanding history, I think you always wonder if you're in the middle of one of the great American chapters, something that you'd read about in history books.

And when we saw the protests happening, and not just the protests, but the response, a multiracial togetherness, the sort of thing that I would dream about or write about in coloring books, you had the chance to feel like something incredible was happening.

And I think that was also measured by some of the reality and some of the cynicism that I think also comes with being black in America. You know, we're joining you from a studio not too far from 16th Street, which was once known as Black Lives Matter Plaza. Right.

Those words, Black Lives Matter, are now erased from the street. But I think it's also important to note why they were there. It wasn't just because people were concerned about George Floyd and the state of racial relations in this country. They were a form of protest, right? They came after the president of the United States had allowed law enforcement officers to use guns

chemical irritants gas on peaceful protesters who are protesting as they were allowed to before a curfew that had been enacted in Washington, D.C. And so at that moment, you saw this great hope, right? I think everyone really wanted for the country to move past what I originally thought was the original sin. But there was also something really terrifying at the undercurrent.

Five years ago when George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer and his death set off a wave of protests against racism and police violence, a reckoning, some reforms, but now a retrenchment. And we're looking at that and where the struggle for racial justice stands five years after the murder. Robert Samuels is national enterprise reporter for The Washington Post and co-author with Tolu Odenaripa of His Name is George Floyd, One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice. Stay with us. I'm Mina Kim.

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Welcome back to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're marking five years since the police murder of George Floyd this hour with Robert Samuels, National Enterprise reporter for The Washington Post and co-author of the biography, His Name is George Floyd. And with you, our listeners, what do you remember about Floyd's murder in the days and months that followed? What is your reaction to the backlash? Noelle on Discord writes, What I have learned is that backlash is very fierce.

Just before the break, we were remembering the racial reckoning America seemed willing to undergo. And I want to bring Clyde McGrady into the conversation to join Robert in taking a closer look at that backlash. Clyde McGrady is national correspondent covering race for The New York Times. Clyde, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you for having me. So in your recent piece, you acknowledge that there is often...

backlash to progress. Quote, abolitionism's triumph gave way to the Ku Klux Klan and the end of Reconstruction. Civil rights marches dissipated as Richard M. Nixon and his silent majority rose to power. So I'm wondering, is there something about the backlash from 2020 that stands out to you as different? As different from those? I mean, the fact that I guess it is being led from the highest, you know,

Offices of power in the White House. I guess that kind of makes it a bit similar to, I guess, the backlash to civil rights in the 60s and 70s. But it is remarkable in the way that a lot of the, I guess,

what you would consider the victimhood narrative to be sort of turned on its head. The president speaks often, and he's done this for a long time, about quote-unquote anti-white racism and sort of using the language of social justice language

to say that, no, it is white people who are being oppressed. And, you know, the last five years were somewhat of an error. And, you know, we must, I guess, reclaim or get a hold of this country's social order, it seems. Yeah.

I was really struck by your line where you say, you know, now Donald J. Trump, a president who has long championed white grievous, is setting the tone of racial discourse. You also write that sort of conservatives have described the backlash as a necessary course correction. A course correction from what, do you think?

Well, I think from their perspective, you know, 2020 to some people was this very galvanizing moment for,

of people standing up and thinking more critically about how race operates in this country or examining this country's history and systems of power. And this multiracial coalition took to the street. Well, in another narrative, it was, you know, it was riots and chaos and it was people, you know, castigating white people for past crimes that they had committed.

nothing to do with. It was, you know, Donald Trump feeling as if he lost control of his country as, you know, fires burned in the street and people really, you know, questioned the way things work the way they do. And there was this sort of loss of control all amid a pandemic. And I think that's what you see in some of this conservative

sort of reshaping or rewriting of the narrative of 2020. One of my colleagues wrote a great story about that conservative effort. And it's as if, you know, to say that George Floyd was not

Yeah.

And if you could erase that moment, then everything that followed is illegitimate. You know, that may be wish casting on their part because, you know, as Robert so eloquently laid out,

the scope and the breadth of those protests. I mean, the image I have is of, you know, one of the images I have of 2020 is Mitt Romney at a Black Lives Matter protest saying Black Lives Matter. I mean, Dolly Parton

The closest thing to an American saint beloved by everyone is saying that, of course, black lives matter. And to think that if somehow you rewrite that narrative, that none of that happened, people didn't take an interest in in in learning more about systems of power in this country. I don't I don't know how successful that would be.

Let me ask listeners, where do you think the country is today on addressing racism and police violence five years after Floyd's death? How much support do you think there is for this administration's actions and the discourse that Clyde was describing? And of course, what do you remember about Floyd's murder in the days and months that follow? And what questions or reactions do you have?

about the backlash. The email address is forum at kqed.org, the phone number 866-733-6786, 866-733-6786. And you can find us on our social channels at KQED Forum. Clyde, you wrote that basically this was like a movement in reverse, or at least the feeling of a movement in reverse. Can you describe some of the stark examples of reversal that you see or have seen?

I think when you look at the Department of Justice saying that we're going to pull these consent decrees with police departments and places like that.

in Minneapolis, which of course saw two of the most high-profile police killings in 2020 with George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, that you are sending a message that you think the police, the people who are sent to maintain order in this country, have been handcuffed, they've been demoralized, and therefore they need to be unleashed to

to regain that order and not have their legitimacy questioned so much. And, you know, I think with the, if you look at the investigation with Chicago's mayor who said that

He was talking about the number of black people in high positions and how good they are at hiring black people in Chicago. And then, you know, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice saying that we – sending him a letter saying that we're going to investigate this. You hear –

Just so much talk from this administration and its allies about racial discrimination against white people. And that, you know, from 2020, if I would have told you, you know, that would be the focus of an administration, you know, five years later, I guess the contrast is kind of jarring. Yeah.

Again, Clyde McGrady is a national correspondent for The New York Times, and Robert Samuels is a national enterprise reporter for The Washington Post. And let me go to caller Sydney in Sonoma. Hi, Sydney. You're on. Hi. Good morning. This is such a great topic. Thank you. I guess I just wanted to say that 2020 was so important for me in my life because I

it basically held a mirror up to me and maybe my unbeknownst to me intrinsic racism that I may have had that I never knew and

And, you know, I just kind of saw it unravel. You saw Ahmaud, then you heard about Floyd and Breonna. And fortunately, I think that the pandemic was just like a perfect recipe for this type of time for that to come about. And I really learned a lot about myself and how intrinsic racism is in this country and how the systems of power work. And it

It was just a very revolutionary time in my life. And when they call, you know, and also Palestine, like, you know, when they say martyrs, it's truly like, it's very, like, it's a very great term because there are martyrs to this revolution. And I guess that's all I had to say. Well, Sydney, I really appreciate the call. And Robert, you know, just hearing Sydney is amazing.

sort of remarking on one of the things that you also noticed from that time as well, and now thinking about the retrenchment that is playing out. Can you talk about some of the ways, like Clyde did, that you've seen the retrenchment play out? It seems like you noticed it even as you were finishing your book in 2023, or 2022 maybe it was. Yeah, well...

Well, the first thing that we noticed was that the support for Black Lives Matter, the statement by September of 2020 had reverted to rates from before George Floyd had been murdered. So the support for that movement, you know, we describe it in our book as being a summertime fling.

The other thing that began to happen, we talk about DEI now, but then we were very concerned with CRT, not the actual definition of critical race theory, but this idea that somehow white people were to blame for all of the ills in the country. That was the mangling of what CRT was.

And that began to result in the banning of books. And so as we were doing the reporting, the books that everyone was supposed to read at the beginning of our reporting journey were now the books that were being banned at the end of our journey. And that was really jarring to see that we produced His Name is George Floyd for people to understand George Floyd and not to...

only see the racism that lies within themselves, as the caller noted, and we appreciate that, but to also see the things that are embedded in policies in the United States.

And releasing the book in that climate in which you were not sure if people would be willing to still wrestle with those conversations was very frightening. You know, Mina, the day before Tolu and I were to receive the Pulitzer Prize, we learned of our first book ban, which happened at the Memphis, Tennessee, the school district in Memphis, Tennessee. And what that taught me

was that in my mind I used to think that book bans were happening from highly conservative, very monochromatic school districts or states or school boards that were imposing their wills because they did not want their students to feel guilty. But the practical nature of it was that because of pressure coming from the state

A majority of Black places, like Memphis, Tennessee, had to make choices to foreclose teaching about their own history, about people who are like them, to their own students. And that, I think, is one of the most terrifying and subtle effects about this. Because

I think it's wrong for people to think that just because of the color of your skin, you inherently understand why things in America are the way they are. And now we're in this moment that that opportunity to learn about those things, which will yield the opportunity to undo some of those things, is being threatened for every American, not just black, not just white.

Thinking about school districts, I read your piece in the Washington Post last year where you described reaching out to a former member of the school board in Shenandoah County, Virginia, named Cindy Walsh. What had happened there?

Well, in Shenandoah County, during 2020, during the summer of 2020, they actually changed the name of the high school there, Stonewall Jackson High School, to something a little less controversial, Mountain View High School. And by 2024, they had changed the name back. They reverted the name back to Stonewall Jackson High

And the reason they did that, the reason the school board voted for it, the board had turned conservative and people complained that Mountain View felt too boring. They wanted to relive the history of their high school while not really thinking about the history of Stonewall Jackson, despite the fact that Stonewall Jackson was not from that community.

And so what I wanted to talk to Cindy, because I wanted to get a sense of what it was like to live in a place that actually actively saw this retrenchment, that people had made a gesture to acknowledge and to undo systemic bias. And the community said, we don't think so.

And what she said to me was something that I think is echoed through a lot of people that I speak with that are very close to these pain points in our country. Almost universally, they say, we thought we were winning. The backlash to what we were pushing for actually lasted long, is lasting longer than the time we thought we were winning. But we don't feel the fight is fully over yet. And I think, yeah,

It's sort of easy to think about this time as saying, well, the movement of 2020, the George Floyd summer, the great racial reckoning, the great awokening, whatever you want to call it, lost. But judging from history and judging from the testimony of people who are close to George Floyd and were moved to action in his name, I think the takeaway is that it's an in-between moment and that the fight's not over. Yeah.

Michael writes, I have a large and extended family in Minnesota. When the George Floyd protests were unfolding, my biggest fear was that provocateurs on the right, many of whom were not from the Twin Cities, would succeed in triggering violence directed at the protesters and their legitimate outrage.

Minnesotans as a whole, including those from my family, progressive Lutherans, held the line and resisted taking the bait. I believe that spirit is still very much alive in Minnesota. I and my family still believe in repeating and repeating George Floyd's name and continuing to say Black Lives Matter again and again and again. Now I believe we are also prepared to stand up again, take to the streets and fight the absurd and racist actions of the Trump administration.

Clyde, I was so struck by a Pew poll that you cite from this month, I think, that finds that more than 70% of Americans say the increased focus on race and racial inequality after Floyd's killing did not lead to changes that improve the lives of black people. And I'm wondering if you agree or how you understand those changes, because I think that question specifically gets to substantive changes that improve the lives of black people. Yeah.

Right. I think people are thinking about, you know, whether it be material changes or policy changes that, you know, directly flowed from those protests. And I mean, it's it's hard to deny, certainly at a federal level, that, you know, what momentum was there dissipated. I'm thinking about, you know, the George Floyd protests.

Policing Act, which was never signed into law. You have things at the state and local level around policing, particularly in blue states. We did a story about

You know, police violence and, you know, police killings have increased in red states and they've decreased in blue states. And I imagine it's very hard to, you know, get an overall picture given these sort of isolated policy outcomes.

And of course, you know, it's just culturally things are a lot different. You've had people in the administration, you know, openly say that, you know, white men are the only people who should be in charge. You've had, you know, like a Doge staffer say, like, I'm racist, you know.

in like a tweet and he was fired and rehired. So things like that, I think sort of permeate and, you know, it's hard to say that, you know, there have been gains when, when you see things like that and you see, um, a lack of policy outcomes, but you know, like Robert said, I think a lot of people are taking a longer view on this. We'll hear about some of those people after the break. Okay.

We're looking at where the struggle for racial justice stands five years after the murder of George Floyd with New York Times Clyde McGrady and Pulitzer Prize winning author Robert Samuel. Stay with us for more after the break. I'm Mina Kim.

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You're listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. We're talking about five years ago when George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, the wave of protests that set off a reckoning and some reforms, but now a retrenchment. And we're also taking a closer look at where the struggle for racial justice stands five years later and where you think it's headed.

Robert Samuels is co-author with Tolu Olorunnipa of his book, His Name is George Floyd, One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice. He's a national enterprise reporter for The Washington Post. Clyde McGrady is national correspondent covering race for The New York Times. Listeners, share what you remember about that time, your questions or thoughts on the backlash, where you think the country is today at 866-733-6786.

On our social channels, on Blue Sky Facebook, Instagram, or threads, or at our email address, forum at kqed.org. Pat writes,

Instead, someone came up with the catastrophic movement name of defund the police, giving the right wing an obvious target and moderate something they had to run away from. What do you think of that, Robert, the reaction or Pat's take on defund the police and its role in the backlash?

Yeah, well, what our reporting showed is that the defund the police movement really began to cleave support for what was going on in Black Lives Matter and also began to be the gateway for people to wonder whether or not this has gone too far. Now, I do think that it's important to note that despite concerns about that word, there was a pretty universal belief in both red and blue states that

Police officers needed more help with mental health crises, more social workers, things like that, softer skills. And so while we did see increases in police killings in red states, as Clyde had noted, I think it's really important to remember that there were some serious efforts made at local and municipal levels

to prevent police from acting out in violent ways, including 16 states that banned the use of the chokehold. Let me go to caller Diane in Los Gatos. Hi, Diane, you're on. Hi, and I have a question regarding the backlash. What was the official reason given for the removal of Black Lives Matter streets sign in Washington, D.C.? Clyde, do you know?

Yeah. So we did a story on this as it was happening. I think Mayor Bowser, Mayor Mero Bowser of D.C. said that this was something that she was considering doing anyway. Then it also became a demand of congressional Republicans as part of the budgeting process. Yeah.

to, uh, to get rid of it. And this is, I think when, you know, Doge is sort of in the peak of its, you know, laying off federal workers. Um, so the mayor, you know, was, was involved in these negotiations with the administration and she's,

you know, more worried about the budget and what is happening to the federal workforce. So I think, you know, Black Lives Matter Plaza became a casualty of what I think she would say is the bigger picture for the region than maintaining that, you know, that installation. Yeah.

Robert, you and Clyde have talked about people taking a long view and I think where you find some inspiration. I was struck by something else that you had shared in the past about waking up, I think, in the spring of last year and wondering if the protesting that had consumed the George Floyd summer was

was actually the desperate last gasp of a movement that would inevitably fail. So who or where did you find help working through that moment for you? Well, I mean, Mina, as a journalist, you wake up sometimes and you wonder, did I get it wrong? Did we think that there was something powerful in telling this man's story that there was not?

Did we portray and lead people to believe in false hope when there should not be? And so I began to do what the only way to think about things in the only way I know how, which is talking to lots of people, everyday people, smart people, and trying to figure out how they were making sense of this moment. And I think the first person that I think about a lot is...

speaking with Reverend Jesse Jackson, when it became clear that the Police Justice Act was not going to happen. And I asked him, you know, specifically, you say all the time, keep hope alive, but what does it mean to keep hope alive? And what he said to me was that you really have to take the long view and consider everything from the beginning.

And considering how stratified this country was when it came to race, when you look at where we are today, you see a net positive. And so in times when you feel the moment is failing, you have to remember that we're still winning. Those were his words.

And I also think of thinking about the nine years, nine years between Rosa Parks giving up her seat and the passage of the Civil Rights Act, which sort of shows that there will be highs and lows and ups and downs throughout total movements. But most of all, I think about

what I've learned not just in reporting of George Floyd, but in traveling the country and talking to people about what the best and worst parts of America is. And when I think about what I've learned, what is really remarkable about this place that we call home is that as long as people have breath, they still believe that things can get better.

And it's only in that sort of pursuit of optimism, which is what we cite in our book as being the American hope, that things get done. And so the question was not, did we get it wrong? I think the question is, did we accurately depict the situation of the country so people can understand what to do next?

And I think that's the question that everybody every day can ask themselves. Like, am I doing things to make the country better for the next day? That's where the hope and the optimism really lies in this country.

I think you're partly addressing Glowy's question or concern here. Glowy on Discord writes, the worldwide movement that came after George Floyd's murder was inspiring in a lot of ways. It felt like something big was happening and real change was possible. But now with Trump's reelection, anti-Black sentiment seems to be rising again. Anti-woke, anti-DEI are usually thrown around as euphemisms for anti-Black. What does this say about the impact of the backlash and about where we're headed next?

Clyde, you wrote something where you basically said that putting historical knowledge back into the bottle after decades of reckoning with the nation's racist history will be more difficult than the Trump administration believes. Why do you feel that way? What are some examples of that? Yeah, I mean, not, you know, knowledge and information is, you know, more democratized than, you know, at any point than I can remember. I know, there's a lot of

you know, um, consternation over, um, misinformation and the way the internet processes, uh, a lot of info, but you know, does, does Darnella Frazier's video, um, get out if not for the internet and social media? I just think it's hard to, um,

to really own information and, um, narratives, um, in this, um, modern time. And, you know, also I was, I was, you know, talking with a professor and he said, you know, before George Floyd, I couldn't really get people to even care, you know, about the legacy of the Confederacy and, um,

the Civil War and then afterwards people were interested. I mean, you know, regardless of what you feel about Ibram X. Kendi, millions of people bought his book. Oh, Ibram X. Kendi, yeah. Yeah, I presume many of them read it.

As well, but you never know. I mean, people picked up Ta-Nehisi Coates or Isabel Wilkerson's Warmth of Other Suns or Cast. These are like Oprah book club books. I mean, people did have a thirst for knowledge after feeling like maybe I didn't quite understand this country. And I just don't think...

goes away and there's also a battle over historical memory and the way this country processes meaning. I mean, there, you know, I brought up the

The Civil War, you know, there's pretty much a consensus around what happened there, but there's still, you know, argument over that. So we will always, as a country, I think, argue over these things and try to create meaning for our present lives. But I just, there are real arguments.

real forces at work, you know, like Robert said like having His book banned or Ta-Nehisi Coates is between the world and me you know a lot of These efforts have real consequences, but I think it's hard to control knowledge. Yeah, I

This listener wants to push back on defund the police. Why is defund the police considered so offensive and controversial while defund the national parks, defund Medicare, defund Social Security and defund USAID has taken hold? Let me remind listeners you are listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.

I'm thinking also about your comment earlier, Robert, where you said as long as people have breath, right, they sort of have the capacity to pursue and pursue optimism. And it reminded me of a George Floyd quote where he said, man, life sucks, but life never sucks. What meaning did you find in that? Is that in part what you're talking about? Yeah, absolutely.

You know, George Floyd thankfully was a writer and he wrote poems to himself. He wrote diary entries to his girlfriends and we saw some of them. And one of the last things he wrote, and we know it was one of the last things because of what he was writing about, speaks to the conditions of the world. In the poem he talks about how he has coronavirus, which we know is true.

how he's dealing with his drug dependency, as did millions of people at the time, how he was unemployed, as was one in two Black Americans who were living in Minnesota at the time. And, you know, he's listing these grievances and he says, you know, "Man, life suck, but life don't ever suck." And from that, I think he was illustrating his character

And writing down what many people had told to us orally, that George Floyd, despite his flaws in acknowledging some of the darknesses that he had in his life, really had this belief that he would end up in a good place, in a better place than he was born in. And that would be the sharecropping farm in North Carolina.

And I think within that, right, comes sort of the power of belief. He would say when he was growing up, I don't want to rule the world. I don't want to change the world. I just want to touch the world. And on May 26th, 2020, when we first heard about what happened to him or saw what happened to him, he definitely touched the world.

And I think the big question is just how mighty of a touch that would be. That's the question we're living with today. Yeah. This listener, Anthony, writes, the retrenchment of concern for Black lives didn't happen all of a sudden. It's been a long time coming. It was manifested in the 1980s and 90s.

With the rise of mass incarceration of black and brown men, continued to the denial of housing when Congress failed to expand Section 8, we now have a huge homelessness crisis in America. And the response to that is allowing cities and police to incarcerate those who occupy public spaces. And of course, the expulsion of refugees back to dangerous and life-threatening conditions. The American heart has become cold and sclerotic. What do you say, Robert, to those who are pessimistic about the current moment?

I don't think the American heart has gotten cold. I do think what this reader points out is true. In our book, we go through decades and centuries of untangling the very roots of what we now know as institutional racism. How many

misguided or poorly thought out policy decisions reverberate in the hearts of people of color in this country in a much stronger way than they do for white people. The reason I would say I don't think the American heart has gotten cold is because there's this constant battle about what the right thing to do will be.

I think it's important to note on something like mass incarceration, for example. Those efforts were supported, propelled by a senator named Joe Biden, right? And Joe Biden did it in consultation with black pastors in his community. And now look at where the discussion about mass incarceration stands. Not even President Trump

supports it. And so I do think it's important for us to know that there are changes, that there can be changes of heart, and those things are never easy. Because if they were easy, we probably would have a more equitable country. I've heard you say pessimism can be the ultimate American privilege. What do you mean by that? Yeah, that's what I learned. I

while doing this. And this came when we were trying to figure out how to physically end the book because we had to stop reporting at some point. And I thought about what the takeaway was of thinking about a people who had endured as much as Black people did. In the case of George Floyd, growing up from a family of

that originally had lots of wealth and lost it all in a single generation because of fraudulent tax deals, being put in segregated communities, being told not to pursue things like becoming a lawyer and playing football instead, being caught in a system of mass incarceration that didn't

offer much healing, right? And those stories were not unique to George Floyd, even though he was a unique character. They're very specific to the Black condition in America. And yet, it is those same people who continue to get up every day, who continue to believe in a better life for their children, who continue to find ways to do it. And that's not simply because

they're just naturally Pollyannish. That's because they have to, right? The idea that you can believe in this country doesn't simply come because of a naivete. It becomes a part of a defense mechanism. And that, if you don't have that, that's a privilege. If you don't believe things can get better, that's a privilege. That's the ultimate American privilege. That's pessimism.

Robert Samuels won the Pulitzer Prize for his book. His name is George Floyd and is a national enterprise reporter for The Washington Post. Robert, thank you so much for coming back and being with us today. Thank you for allowing me to tell this story. I appreciate it. Clyde McGrady, national correspondent covering race for The New York Times. Appreciate your reporting and insights too, Clyde. Thank you. Yes. Thank you so much for having me here. And thank you, listeners. The forum team includes Susie Britton, Caroline Smith, Francesca Fenzi, Mark Nieto, Jennifer Ng,

And also Danny Bringer, Brennan Willard, and Christopher Beal. You've been listening to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Funds for the production of Forum are provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Generosity Foundation, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. ♪

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