Amidst the carnage and flames, and the dramatic live-shots of anger and frustration being pumped through your phones, tablets, computers, and TVs, it’s easy to lose sight of the real story.

The story is that a man was murdered.

The man was George Floyd. You can read about his life and legacy here.

He was murdered by a system.  The blunt instrument that the system used is named Derek Chauvin.

That blunt instrument was assisted by a support team that included former officers Thomas Lane, J. Alexander Kueng, and Tou Thau, fellow officers who, up until now, would seem to show a fairly positive picture of diversity. Nevertheless, these are the people who stood by and did nothing while a murder was being committed in front of them.

There are a lot of people who would have you think that the support team stops here. It doesn’t.

Medaria Arradondo is the police chief in Minneapolis. These officers report to him. He kept them employed and is in charge of the culture that allowed them to exist.

Betsy Hodges was the mayor who appointed Medaria Arrandondo.

Jacob Frey is the current mayor. Chief Arrandondo serves at his pleasure and he sets the tone for the policy and culture of the city.

Along with the mayor, Chief Arradondo answers to the city council. The council is comprised of thirteen individuals:  Kevin Reich, Cam Gordon, Steve Fletcher, Phillipe Cunningham, Jeremiah Ellison, Abdi Warsame, Lisa Goodman, Andrea Jenkins, Alondra Cano, Lisa Bender, Jeremy Schroeder, Andrew Johnson, and Linea Palmisano.

Please look at all these faces.

These individuals approved a $1.5 billion budget and, according to their website, employ more than 4,000 people in dozens of departments  (http://www.minneapolismn.gov/jobs/index.htm)

One of those departments is The Division of Race & Equity.

http://www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/coordinator/Equity/index.htm

According to the ordinance that created The Division of Race & Equity, “The City declares its intent to purposefully integrate, on an enterprise wide basis, a racial equity framework that will advance racial equity in all the City does in order to ultimately achieve equity for all people.”

Outside of the Minneapolis government, there are organizations like the Minneapolis Foundation (https://www.minneapolisfoundation.org). The Minneapolis Foundation has mobilized the local philanthropic community and directed hundreds of thousands of dollars toward programs that encourage equity, access, and inclusion.

It’s important you understand the purpose for naming names. You need to know how many people are involved. This is not to insinuate that these individuals and organizations are all racist. That is not true.  There is no reason to believe that the people who work for all of these agencies and organizations are not honestly doing what they believe to be best for their community. Equally important is the fact that this community has not turned a blind eye to their race issue.  In fact, they have invested a lot of time, money, and personnel to solving the issues around racism, discrimination, and inequity.

All of the time, money, and people, as progressive and well-intentioned as they may be, have failed. And that failure took less than nine minutes.

But there is a larger issue at hand: The description of Minneapolis is the description of every community in America. It’s NYC and LA, Miami and Chicago, Gary and Knoxville, Richmond and Portland. It’s all of us.

It’s white people, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, and black people. It’s even a half-Italian, half-Lebanese guys from Trenton, NJ.

The point is that a man was murdered. He was murdered by a vast generations-old system. That system is something we put our time, our money, and our faith into. We passed laws, made ordinances, enacted taxes, changed hiring practices, funded entire agencies, and built non-profit networks.

All of that is great. All of that is necessary. But it’s really just packaging. It’s an elaborate marketing campaign that has, by all accounts, been remarkably successful. But, as we say in the business, “Nothing will kill a mediocre product quicker than good marketing.” That’s because marketing merely points toward the product or service or organization. The reality lies in the substance of those products, services, or organizations. In this case, great marketing only draws attention to a product that doesn’t work.

It would be intellectually dishonest to say that all of these organizations, agencies, policies, and funds are without value. It would be wrong to say that the people within those organizations aren’t fervent, honest, trustworthy, and effective.  But if we were going to be brutally honest, as brutal as the emotions and thinking that ultimately killed George Floyd and others, we would have to admit that all of the government programs and non-profit organizations and money and time are only an outward demonstration that say we, as communities throughout the United States (and the world) view racism and discrimination as a problem worthy of solving.  And while this outward demonstration is critical, racism and discrimination were not created by a system and therefore they cannot be solved by a system. They have been perpetuated by systems, but racism and discrimination are issues that stem from the heart. They are rooted in the fear and ignorance of individuals.

Just as the ignorance and fear that drives racism and discrimination cannot be justified by murder, that same ignorance and fear cannot be driven away by anger, frustration, and violence.

If money won’t solve it, if organizations won’t solve it, if we cannot wage war against it, or write laws that will put an end to it, what’s left?

What’s left is the greatest and most radical instrument of change to ever come into the world. It is a four-letter word called Love.

When a person is afraid, you do not burn their room down to make their fear go away.  You love them.

When a neighbor is operating in ignorance, you do not smash their windows or light their car on fire. You love them.

As radical and controversial as this is going to sound, as ugly and trite as it will seem—as individuals, we must find a way to love the victims of racism, and, and we must fight through all that is natural and normal in order to love the racists as well. If we each can do this, and commit to bringing this love into our organizations, agencies, and policies, we will slowly fray the bondages to fear and ignorance, anger and frustration, rage and horror.

These are horrific, dangerous, and powerful thoughts:

“Love your neighbor as yourself.”

“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Before balking at these statements, I would ask you to keep in mind that this radical, nonsensical, provocative Love is what George Floyd gave his life to promote.