My Step-Sister or George Floyd?

In the early 2000's, one of my blue-eyed, blonde-haired, white step-sisters had multiple warrants out for her arrest for check forgery. She's been in and out of trouble for most of her life and also has a history of drug abuse and being defiant with authority figures. I've been reminded of it in the past year, especially as she and her dad are babbling about something they've heard on Fox News.

I love them both. My step-dad is a great guy in many regards. My step-sister has turned her life around. However, in my opinion, they, like many people, often lack empathy and the ability to take lessons learned in one situation and apply them to other situations. Recent event have been weighing heavily on me, and responses from friends and family can sometimes be hurtful and frustrating.

With counterfeit bills, you could even give the benefit of the doubt that maybe you didn't know. With forged checks, you definitely did it on purpose, so there's not even that excuse. Still, even with the extensive history of drugs, defiance, and crime, the two of them are so privileged and so oblivious that they can't even comprehend what the actual issues are or imagine a word where it could ever be a problem for them. They really can't see ANY parallels between her and George Floyd either, and it's unbelievable to watch. It made me wonder if or how their thinking might be different had events unfolded differently in an alternate reality where blonde people, and particularly blonde women, have been systematically and disproportionately targeted and brutalized by law enforcement and their hair weaponized and seen as a threat...

Heather* went into a corner store one day and cashed a bad check, as she'd done many other times. The clerk quickly realized it and called the police as Heather was leaving the store.

As Heather got into her car, two police, Officer Washington and Officer Lopez, arrived. They approached her car, and one drew his gun and told her to show her hands. She put her hands on the steering wheel, and Officer Washington opened the door and pulled her out of the car, at which point he handcuffed her as she stomped her feet and shouted about her constitutional rights and how someday she would take back her country and make it great again. She called to bystanders for help, and a few stopped, a couple recording what was unfolding in front of them and a couple calling 911 on the police themselves. Officer Washington told the onlookers to put the cameras away as he dragged her to the squad car and put her in the back seat as Officers Tsosie and Bridges arrived on the scene.

Officer Tsosie opened the door and slapped Heather a few times before grabbing her by her long blonde hair and pulling her back out of the car, slamming her face-down onto the sidewalk. Officer Washington held her back down, Officer Lopez held her legs down, and Officer Tsosie knelt with his knee on the back of her neck while officer Bridges kept lookout to make sure that no one interfered.

Heather wriggled back and forth a few times and tried to catch her breath as she said repeatedly, "Please, please, I can't breathe." A blood ran down her nose, she begged them, "Please, someone call my dad Dave. I can't breathe. He's a nurse, he'll know what to do." They responded, "No, you're talking, so you must be able to breathe just fine."

A few minutes later she gasped for air, continued writhing on the ground, and tried to lift her head. A couple minutes after that she called out for her dad again before defecating on herself, then she stopped moving. She then stopped breathing, and a minute later they checked her pulse and found she didn't have one. Two minutes later, Office Tsosie removed his knee from her neck as an ambulance arrived to take her lifeless body to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

The footage of the events was release, and all her father and millions of others could do was watch from behind a screen as the life drained out of her. Heartbroken, her father watched his daughter die. He was outraged, even more so when he was told that none of the four officers had been charged with anything. He demanded that they be punished, and as the video spread, he got a lot of support from the community. They became even more upset when the autopsy results returned, listing the cause of death as lung damage from years of smoking.

People of all hair colors began to protest in the streets of Richmond with signs saying "Justice for Heather" and "Stop Police Brutality." Her step-mom Becky spoke at a protest to express her heartbreak and call for accountability for these officers. These events were especially troubling to people because they saw it unfold in front of their eyes, and it couldn't as easily be written off as bleeding heart liberal media making a big deal out of nothing and police responding appropriately to a violent criminal posing a threat, as it is in so many other cases.

Soon after, the smear campaigns were launched. First it started with the usual simple manipulation talking points. Tucker Carlson showed a graph and explained, "People with black and brown hair make up 90% of the U.S. population. Of the 300 unarmed civilians killed by police last year, 180 of them were people with black and brown hair. That's WAY MORE than the 120 blonde people they killed! So really, not only is police killing 300 unarmed civilians a non-issue, but since the actual number of brunettes is higher, people with brown hair like me are the real victims. Blondes are just trying to make excuses because they're trouble makers who never want to take responsibility for going around just asking to be killed." Many of the undereducated brunettes watching nodded in agreement, as they didn't understand how statistics work, and those numbers made sense to them. This solidified their belief that they were actually the ones being threatened by blondes if anything, and blondes were not being targeted at all, despite everything they'd been seeing and hearing for decades. After all, they could think of at least a handful of blonde people who hadn't been killed by police, so it obviously wasn't a real problem.

Then it turned to discrediting supporters. Sean Hannity dismissed her step-moms pleas for justice. "This Becky woman isn't a politician, she's not an officer of the law, she's not a TV commentator. Why should anyone listen to her opinions? She's just a pharmacist who needs to shut up and count pills." Then, of course, it was quickly and inevitably onto the victim herself. Candace Owens made a video saying, "This woman, if you can even call her that--scum of the earth cretin is probably more accurate--Heather Grimes, is not some hero. She's been arrested several times, she stole her mom's car and drank and smoked weed when she was a teenager. She was in a girls home because she got into so much trouble, and she abandoned her own daughter with her mother while she was on drugs and tried to leave the state to get away from outstanding warrants. She was a criminal, and the world is better off without her. Good riddance." Online people argued that because she stomped her feet and talked back to them that she was resisting arrest and not complying, so they were forced to act in self-defense.

Of course, the misinformation and heartless attacks on the victim that had nothing to do with what had happened were designed solely to detract from people's outrage over her death, to distract them from what they had seen, and to make them forget how tired they were of seeing young blonde woman after young blonde woman be disproportionately targeted and brutalized by police. Carlson's viewers made sure to share his chart regularly on social media because they thought it really supported their argument AND made police killings acceptable as long as they kill a higher number of brunettes. The Hannity and Owens videos were shared millions of times as "evidence" that she in fact deserved to be die because of her past and obvious lack of worth as a human being and, therefore, police were justified in killing her for something unrelated.

Finally, after days of protesting, Officer Tsosie was charged only because of public pressure. Lawmakers called for changes to try to prevent this type of incident from continuing to occur. After several more days of protests, the other three officers were also charged in their roles in Heather's death. Her dad was relieved but wary because he knew that, historically, the few officers who had been charged with killing people were generally acquitted later.

Little Toni*, her daughter, was devastated that her mom was dead, but she was proud that her death had led to so many changes. Many celebrities gave their family money to help with funeral and legal fees, and Barbara Streisand even gave Toni a scholarship for when she got older so she'd be able to go to college without any financial worries. There were people upset by that too. They told her, "Your mom was not a hero or a martyr, she was a piece of shit thug." Others complained that it wasn't fair she had gotten a scholarship. After all, she could have already gotten her own financial aid from scholarships because she's a redhead or scholarships for people who have had both parents die or for grandchildren of disabled veterans. In fact, they said, it wasn't fair that those scholarships existed at all either because it gives her an unfair advantage and discriminates against kids who aren't gingers and who have two living parents and whose grandparents aren't disabled veterans.

Seeking to memorialize and honor his daughter, Dave posted a picture of Heather on his social media with the caption, "Heather's life mattered. Please don't forget, and don't let her have died in vain." Some of his Facebook friends were supportive and offered their condolences and memories of Heather, while others instead responded, "blue lives matter" and "all lives matter." Like his page, the country was divided--over whether or not it was okay for the police to have knelt on her neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds; over whether or not a forged check warranted the death penalty; over whether or not people who directly contributed to the murder of someone else should be held accountable for their actions; and over whether or not blonde women's lives really do matter as much as other people's. Those were legitimately questions in many people's minds, whether or not they phrased them that way.