Tuesday marked the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd. And while leftists around the world were readying themselves to celebrate the death of their martyr-saint, the site of Floyd’s memorial was the scene of a shooting.
The shooting was caught live on camera, as it began right as a reporter was being filmed for a segment on the anniversary. Dozens of rounds were fired, with most bystanders hitting the ground or fleeing. The shooting was allegedly the result of a parking dispute, hardly something the city wanted to see on the anniversary of Floyd’s death. But the irony wasn’t lost on social media.
The fact is that there’s a reason the left is choosing criminals like George Floyd, Daunte Wright, or Michael Brown to become the icons they celebrate, rather than people like Philando Castile, Cory Maye, or Kathryn Johnston. They know that Castile, Maye, and Johnston were innocent victims who could be supported by people both white and black, liberal or conservative. Using them as martyrs or idols would lead to rapprochement and greater understanding across the political and racial divide. And that’s not what BLM and its Marxist allies want.
BLM and the Marxists who founded it want division. They want liberals to hate conservatives, leftists to hate liberals, and blacks to hate whites. Division fuels their movement, and so they intentionally choose divisive individuals like George Floyd to serve as icons for their movement. That’s the same reasoning that led the Nazis to idolize small-time criminal and pimp Horst Wessel after his murder by naming their party anthem after him.
The Nazis understood that no decent person would have shed a tear for Wessel, so that’s why they made him their icon. They forced their members to honor him, thereby demonstrating that they would be willing to follow the party line. But they also used him as a wedge against their opponents. Because Wessel was murdered by Communists, he was the martyr the party was looking for to claim moral authority over the Communist Party.
Floyd is fulfilling the same role for Marxists here in the US, who have all but canonized him. Murals featuring his face are everywhere, and the site of his death is now a memorial. Like Wessel, Floyd’s criminal background and many flaws are overlooked. In order to show your wokeness or your support for BLM, you have to believe that Floyd was murdered, and you have to believe that he was a victim of systemic racism, not just an unfortunate victim of his particular circumstance due to the actions he undertook.
That’s how the Marxists in this country are using Floyd’s death as a wedge. No decent person would stand up for a drug abusing criminal with a history of sexual assault and robbery. But if you dare to point out Floyd’s flaws, you’re castigated and accused of enabling continued systemic racism.
The question now is how long the cult of St. George will last. We know that the left is just using his death as a useful excuse to get what it wants. Will it jettison him as soon as it’s convenient? Or will he become the patron saint of the Marxist movement that aims to take power in this country? Unless conservatives take a strong stand against the woke movement, we may never stop hearing about George Floyd.