Page 46 - PC Winter 2023-24

Connection
REFLECTIONS
A Journey to George Floyd Square
46
PRESBYTERIAN
WINTER 2023
presbyterian.ca
By the Rev. Steve Filyk,
St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Kamloops, B.C.
This past week I attended a Pres- byterian church conference in Minneapolis. I had never been to Minneapolis and knew little about the city or state. But at some point, a memory tweaked and Google confirmed what my mem- ory was trying to tell me: I was in the town of George Floyd, and the epicentre of global protests that followed his murder by a law enforcement officer in 2020.
After the conference ended, I had a free afternoon with a friend who wanted to visit George Floyd Square.
I wasn’t particularly enthused by this option. I was told that the memorial intersection had been cordoned off previously by resi- dents of the neighbourhood. And while I had only been in the city a few days, the racial disparity was evident.
Our pilgrimage to the square (we made our way by foot) took us past downtown businesses, then apar tment buildings, then old Victorian homes. Some of these homes were maintained and guarded with security cam- eras. Others were dilapidated with weeds covering the front yards.
After an hour, we reached the gateway to our destination. In the
Steve with Angela Harrelson, George Floyd’s aunt, at the memorial to George Floyd.
to pay respects and she thanked us with hugs. Angela and KingD- emetrius then began talking about George Floyd, the protests, the trial of Derek Chauvin, and their own experiences with racism.
Angela exuded warmth and hospitality. She told us that when they said “Black Lives Matter” they weren’t saying that white lives didn’t matter. They were protesting the fact that the many rights and privileges that white people freely enjoyed weren’t be- ing shared; they had to fight for them.
Angela escorted us across the road to the memorial, which had been cordoned off with concrete road dividers and was awash in flowers. She showed us the place where Floyd died after having a knee on his neck for over nine minutes, despite gasping that he couldn’t breathe. It was solemn to hear the story recounted in that place. We lingered. Then we walked over to see the murals and the list of twenty-four community demands.
We took a different route back to the hotel, which was in many ways more destitute than the pathway we took to the memorial. We passed a parking lot next to an abandoned shopping mall where day labourers were waiting for employment. We watched peo- ple openly consuming drugs. We
passed one man sorting through garbage while screaming at the heavens. The journey back was objectively more dangerous than the journey there and yet I was somehow less afraid.
So what had happened? Some- how my fears were lessened by the short time I shared with KingDemetrius and Angela. This conversation didn’t erase our very different life experiences; in fact, it highlighted those differ- ences. But having a conversation, shaking hands, and sharing hugs somehow established a connec- tion that spanned that divide.
A pillar of a raised fist with the “Pan- African flag.
middle of the road was a marker, a pillar, an upraised fist draped with what I learned to be the “Pan-Af- rican flag” (a tricolour consisting of three equal horizontal bands of red, black and green). As well, a list of names were painted in block letters on that same road. These were the names of people who had lost their lives to police violence. The list stretched an en- tire block.
As we approached the me- morial intersection, we slowed. There were a few people milling about, but it was unclear whether we should be there. We paused at a storefront that was covered with
posters of the protest. We were trying to judge the situation and assess the environment we had walked into.
Then a voice rang out from in- side the storefront: “Come on in!” Pushing through the screen door we were met by a man named KingDemetrius Pendle- ton, who shook our hands. He told us it was a good day for us to visit and introduced us to a woman first sitting on a couch, then standing up to greet us. It was George Floyd’s aunt, Angela Harrelson. She greeted us warm- ly and asked us where we were from. We told her we had come
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