I’m a journalist by profession, but I’m above and beyond anything a Black man in America.
My Blackness enters with me in every space in which I occupy. It colors and informs almost every aspect of my life, both professional and personal. And as exhausting as that can be – and trust me, it’s exhausting at times – I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love being Black. I just hate having to be Black.
My mom used to say everyone has a purpose. In my later years of life it’s that sense of purpose that drives me. I have a purpose, even if I don’t always know the what nor the why.
I suspect it was to be where I was, doing what I was doing on May 25, 2020, and the days and weeks following.
It was just two weeks prior that I took over as the editor-in-chief at North News, the community newspaper in north Minneapolis. It was to that newly minted email address that on the evening of May 25 I got the now infamous press release – man suffers medical incident during police encounter (or something similarly innocuous).
But the 8-minute-46-second sickening truth would be exposed the next day thanks to then 17-year-old Darnella Frazier. It wasn’t a medical incident that killed George Floyd, it was Dereck Chauvin. I, like most of the world, watched the video in horror. And prior to the trial, it was a video that I could only watch once.
George calling out to his dead mother as his life was being extinguished was too much to take. In journalism we’re trained to refer to people by their last name on second and subsequent references, but not today. Today, he’s George. He’s owed that level of humanity – a humanity that was denied by Chauvin. Chauvin doesn’t deserve nor shall not receive the same courtesy.
Upon seeing the footage of George taking his final breaths, I reached out to my then reporter, now editor-in-chief at North News, David Pierini, and told him we were going to ignore our physical boundaries of north Minneapolis and cover the murder that occurred in south Minneapolis. I would deal with any blowback and I said, sadly and correctly, that this was going to affect north Minneapolis. As it turns out, it affected the world. In David’s first night out he was hit in the leg with a tear gas canister. Lost a really expensive camera lens in the process.
Soon after the video emerged, I got a call from the mayor’s office. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey knew he needed to get ahead of the story and wisely to his credit, he knew he needed to do it through Black media. Protests were already being organized. Now North News isn’t Black media, but it’s Black adjacent – north Minneapolis is historically Black (even designated by an early 1900s zoning map as “Negro Slum” and North News’ parent company, Pillsbury United Communities, has a history of Black leadership, at that time headed by current MinnPost board vice chair Adair Mosley. And Frey knew me from my prior position as managing editor of the legacy Black Press institution, Insight News.
Frey wanted to do a live-to-Facebook interview with me to talk about the killing and his response. Remember, we’re in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, so such virtual interactions were becoming the norm at the time. I agreed and invited my former boss, Al McFarlane of Insight, to be a part. It was important to me to have the Black Press truly represented on the call. The late Mel Reeves of the Spokesman Recorder was also invited to be on the call, but was unable to connect.
It was during that interview seen by more than 50,000 people, that I for the second time in my journalistic career cried while reporting on a story. The first time was following the announcement of no charges against the Minneapolis police officers who killed Jamar Clark five years prior in north Minneapolis. My third time would come days later when covering a protest at City Hall and down came the announcement that Chauvin would indeed be charged with murder. We’re trained as journalists to be unbiased observers, but that training doesn’t absolve one’s humanity.
During that interview, which I’m only listening to again for the first time as I type, I asked a central question multiple times: How do we root out the culture of racism and indifference for human life that was (and many would say still is) pervasive in the Minneapolis Police Department?
Having seen the current chief’s recent comments in the New York Post, I’m of the belief that parts of that culture still exist.
“There needs to be a shift in the culture and more importantly, in who the officers are,” Frey said during the interview. I asked then and I ask now: Who are these new officers? MinnPost has made attempts within the past year to assess the ethnic makeup of the department, but we have yet to ascertain the data. Transparency is much talked about, but not always adhered to.
Related from Harry Colbert Jr.: Changing the color of police doesn’t change the culture of policing
I remember that Tuesday, May 26, night going out to the first protest. I remember having to prepare myself. Again, we were in a pandemic. We were on lockdown. We were “social distancing.” Businesses throughout the state were closed. Large gatherings were prohibited. For the first time in more than two months I was going to be among people other than my immediate family and friends. I had to make sure to have multiple masks.
Organizers of the protest at 38th and Chicago – the site of George’s unaliving (the term that’s become en vogue on social media due to the flagging of the word murder) – asked that participants remain six feet apart. And for the most part people did – on that day at least.
Through a mask I recognized a familiar face. It was Diamond Reynolds. Diamond has the unenviable distinction of capturing on video the final breaths of Philando Castille, killed by police in 2016. In yet another case of justice denied, Philando’s killer was charged, but acquitted.
But Diamond wasn’t the person who most caught my attention.
The person who most caught my attention was a man weaving in and out of the protesters on a bicycle. I immediately knew his intentions were not in line with the rest of the crowd. I remember looking into his eyes – the rest of his face covered. I remembered seeing evil. It took me back to the protests following Jamar’s killing when a white supremacist shot five protesters in the cover of night. I have a saying. “I’m not psychic, I just knew.”
I knew then what it would take officials days to say openly – white supremacists were in the city with the purpose of furthering the unrest and bring about chaos. In many ways they succeeded.
It’s funny what stays with you during traumatic events.
A lot is lost to time, but what I remember is the Friday morning of May 29, 2020. By then the city was on fire, north Minneapolis included. I’m not psychic, I just knew. But my area in the Cleveland/Victory neighborhoods was mostly spared. It was the day of my first edition of North News as editor was to hit the streets. It had gone to press prior to the killing of George, thus did not capture the enormity of the day. As I woke to meet the delivery driver for a 6 a.m. pick-up, word was circulating that the service station up the street at Penn and Dowling was on fire. On my way to pick up the papers, I drove past the station. It was an inferno. Every so often you’d hear a huge pop and the flames would rise a bit higher.
I remember that day the most.
I remember driving past the Holiday on Washington Avenue near Lowry and seeing it burned out. The Holiday at Washington and West Broadway looted. So too was the Cub Foods on West Broadway.
Until that point, I wondered what it would be like to cover a war zone. On that day I found out. Cars were crashed and abandoned along West Broadway. Flames were shooting out of the O’Reilly Auto Parts store. You could see the smoke from the flames of the Third Precinct Police Station and Target store in south Minneapolis from all the way across town.
But the smell. That smell of burning plastics and chemicals was stuck in the hairs of my nostrils. Anytime I smell plastic burning it takes me back to that Friday.
Five years is both long ago and fresh at the same time.
I wrestle personally with my career successes following the murder of George. As a result of my coverage of the murders of George, and a year later 20-year-old Daunte Wright, I gained a bit of prominence. I was featured in national and international publications and appeared on national television. To be honest, it’s how I got here to MinnPost. So there’s this sense of survivor’s remorse. I’d give it all back in a heartbeat if George, Jamar, Philando, Amir (Locke) were still here. I’ve experienced so much in the years since their killings. They’ve only experienced death.
And five years post the murder of George, where are we? What’s really changed? The conditions that created the rightful uprising remain. And no, I don’t condone the crimes against property that occurred, but I damn sure understand. A lot of promises and commitments were made and some were kept … but some were not. It’s those unfulfilled promises that gives me concern when I think we could be right back here in five more years … five more months … five more days. I wish not nor want not for such a recurrence, but if it should return because of our collective and selective amnesia, I’ll simply say, “I’m not psychic, I just knew.”
Harry Colbert Jr. is MinnPost’s managing editor.
