The death of George Floyd

The death of George Floyd has rocked the country and for good reasons.  We need to make changes.  I feel lost and unsure of how I can help and make changes.  I wish I could do more.  I'm sad to see what is happening in cities around us and even more sad when I hear stories of what black communities continue to deal with.  I hope to continue to push the conversation and bring awareness to the importance of equality. This was shared at work this week and I thought it was so powerful. 

A personal reflection on the death of George Floyd

Since the tragic, horrific and needless death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police our state and country have been consumed by an outpouring of justifiable and understandable sadness, passion and anger. 

As a nation, we have been here before.

Many of us recall in the late 1960’s the excitement and pride associated with the Apollo program juxtaposed with the sense of chaos and tragedy as we also witnessed race riots in many of our major cities.  On Saturday, I watched the SpaceX launch with my grandson, Owen, and at the same time witnessed, on a split screen, images of protests across the country. As I saw the wonder in his eyes as the rocket lifted off, I felt a profound sense of despair and sadness. 

Have we made no progress over the more than 50 years that have passed since I was a little boy watching as that terrible year of 1968 unfolded; a year that included protests, rioting and violence provoked by social injustice as well as the senseless deaths of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King?

Then, as now, there are calls for the protests to end, to restore order, to depend on the courts, to trust the process.   Dr. King in his 1963 letter from the Birmingham jail admonished those who seek moderation; who suggested that the protests in Birmingham were unwise and untimely; that justice should be sought in the courts and not in the streets.  To be clear, the protests we are witnessing today, like those in Birmingham more than 50 years ago are a long overdue expression of deep pain and intense frustration born of powerlessness in the face of profound persistent inequality and injustice.  Moderation, like the process, has failed.

Like many of you, I no longer feel that I can remain among the moderates that King decries in his letter. A failed process leaves us with no option other than to somehow make our individual and collective voices clearly heard.

We, as physicians, as caregivers, as members of the Mayo Clinic family and as members of this community must actively and publicly reaffirm our commitment to “justice for all” regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or national origin.

The time has come for us to find it in ourselves to look past what is superficial and judge one and other on what lies beneath. Among the greatest words ever spoken by an American are those Dr. King delivered in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963;  

“…I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

We clearly failed the children of my generation but we still have a responsibility to the little children of today. Now more than ever, together, we must make Dr. Kings dream a reality so that todays’ little children can live in a world that rejects the hatred that underlies this and all social injustice. 

Dr. Randall Flick  

I hope that do better for our kids and the world they get to grow up in.  I hope that they look back at 2020 and say that was the year big changes were made.. oh yeah and there was COVID.