George Floyd didn’t deserve to die, but it’s WRONG that he’s being hailed as some sort of saint

The Black Lives Matter campaign is correct to demand justice for George Floyd’s brutal death. But trying to turn this violent ex-con into a Mandela-like martyr does this crusade a great disservice.

I wonder what ran through George Floyd’s terrified mind during those agonising eight minutes and 46 seconds. Did his life flash before his eyes?   

Perhaps he was a religious man and – realizing his number was up after he mumbled those famous last words: “Please, I can’t breathe!” – he silently prayed to God for help, or maybe even made an act of contrition.

But Floyd sadly hadn’t got a prayer with such a sadistic b*****d kneeling on his windpipe and literally sucking the life out of him, while three of his colleagues  – who had undertaken an oath to protect and serve – didn’t lift a finger to help.

However, it’s not right that he is now being canonized by the liberal left in their Black Lives Matter campaign, because the truth is: this ex-con who has been described as a “career criminal” was certainly no saint, judging by his past sins – which include aggravated robbery, theft, criminal trespassing, and drug-related arrests.

Floyd’s “violent criminal past”once saw him break into a pregnant woman’s home and point a loaded gun at her unborn child as he demanded money and drugs from her. It’s hard to imagine just how terrified his helpless victim must have felt with a firearm pressed against her unborn child.

Perhaps Floyd – seeing as he was apparently a loving father  – was racked with guilt about that particularly callous crime, right up until the very end.

It’s also very possible that there weren’t any profound thoughts running around his head considering he might have been high at the time of his death. The autopsy report discovered he had fentanyl and methamphetamine in his system at the time of death (as well as Covid-19).

This type of evidence hardly suggests a “changed man,” as is being claimed by liberals and their media outlets, who are being allowed to run with this false narrative without being pulled up on it. Come on! I mean, how can a drugged-up man with a violent past be absurdly portrayed as a “gentle giant”? As the black conservative activist Candace Owens, who is now being pilloried for speaking her mind, mused, “Was he really going to turn things around? It’s just not true.”

If there is an all-forgiving God – and only Floyd knows the answer to that question now – he would have certainly been welcomed through those pearly white gates.  But the last thing the Almighty would’ve ever contemplated would be how to turn this particular sinner into a saint.

It’s nothing short of ridiculous that he is being hailed as a “mentor to a generation of young men.” I can’t believe the false hagiography, coming from a liberal agenda wishing to use him as a propaganda prop, is being bought hook, line and sinker by a gullible public. As Owens said, “George Floyd was not a good person. I don't care who wants to spin that, I don't care how CNN wants to make you think that he had just turned his life around.”

Similarly, you’d have to question if the Alt-Right try to use his death to their own advantage, which no doubt Donald Trump will attempt to do during the upcoming presidential election. There’s clearly already been a dirty tricks campaign to smear and demonise Floyd, judging by some of the disgusting memes about his death, and there’s also been some unnecessary information stuck up online about him apparently appearing in a sordid pornographic film – with the graphic footage itself being passed around for sickening laughs on WhatsApp in recent days.

Floyd does not deserve to have his name dragged through the mud, but he also shouldn’t be falsely portrayed as a prophet either, if society wants to properly mourn and protest against the gruesome manner in which he was cruelly taken from this world. There needs to be a middle ground here.

At the end of the day, it would be a fantastic tribute if his violent death radically shakes things up and actually helps to finally amputate, once and for all, everything that is rotten at the core of America’s soul.

But we must not turn him into a saint because, sorry, the truth might hurt here, but – given his track record – it’s not unfair to say he himself could conceivably have been involved in the looting and rioting that’s ripping apart America.

Owens’ comment that “the fact that George Floyd is held up as a martyr sickens me” was most certainly OTT, to say the least. But – apart from the insensitive timing of broadcasting such contentious views just before the poor man was being buried – I really don’t understand all the hullabaloo about most of her other views on his death. 

Whatever way you spin it, she was right in saying that Floyd is not a martyr – not in the true sense of the definition, which is “a person who is killed because of their religious or other beliefs.” He was not like Gandhi or Nelson Mandela, both of whom were willing to sacrifice themselves for the good of their causes. It’s an insult to their memories to even mutter Floyd’s name in the same breath as theirs – with no disrespectful pun intended there.

I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but even I’m beginning to wonder if his death might not have even been racially motivated and was perhaps something more sinister, given the fact that Floyd and his killer’s paths had crossed when they both worked security at the same club.

Owens was also correct when she said that other ethnic minorities, such as Jews or Hispanics, would not have embraced someone who had done “five stints in prison” as a hero. The truth is, Floyd was nothing more and nothing less than an unfortunate victim, if you want to put a label on him.  

Owens – who as an African-American herself is allowed to vocalize her thoughts in a way that I would be crucified for doing as a so-called privileged white man – explained: “[Black Americans] are unique in that we are the only people that fight and scream and demand support and justice for the people in our community who are up to no good.”

It would be a great disservice to the memory of Floyd if in 50 years’ time schools kids were to crack open their history books and read a distorted account of his true story.

I’ve no doubt there was some good in the man, but it’s pushing the boat out if he ends up on tacky t-shirts with an iconic-style image of him with a halo over his head. Floyd was not even an iconoclastic figure out there fighting the good fight, never mind some kind of a religious icon. 

Either way, let’s hope his six-year-old daughter Gianna will grow up to be able to genuinely repeat these poignant words: “Dad changed the world.”  It will still be a proud legacy for her to cherish, but let’s stop with all this nonsense of putting this victim up on a pedestal. He was not a saint in life, so let’s not make him one in death.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.