Madeyln Hoffman, a lifelong New Jersey peace and justice activist and a Green Party candidate for the United States Senate, this afternoon made the following observations:

“It is wrong for me, as a white person and longtime activist, to presume to judge or explain what I think is the most effective way to respond to the murder of George Floyd. We all watched the terrible sight of a white cop squeezing the life out of a black man as the cop put his weight behind his knee on the neck of a black man pinned to the ground and handcuffed. We all saw this play out in an agonizingly long, painful 9 – 10 minute video and heard George Floyd repeatedly cry out ‘I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe,’ until the last three minutes of the video when George Floyd was unresponsive.

“How many times has the black community witnessed a scene like this play out in front of them? Names like Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many others come to mind — so many situations in which black and brown lives are stolen by police with impunity – one on top of the other with no justice. And, of course, the life stolen can never be replaced. How can I possibly understand the depths of the rage and the anguish people feel — if I do, it’s not in the same way. The rage the people of Minneapolis and elsewhere are expressing is real and we can see and touch it.

“My role as an ally and one who opposes this continued onslaught on the black community is to listen and learn, not to judge. The goal of so many of the protestors is simple — to get justice for George Floyd. This means that the three other cops who stood by and participated in Floyd’s murder need to be arrested and charged. And that also means that Derek Chauvin, already charged with 3rd degree murder and manslaughter, needs to be convicted. Given the many moments he had to lift his knee off Floyd’s neck, the urging of onlookers to let Floyd breathe, and the comment by one of the bystanders directed at the cops, ‘He’s human, bro,”’George Floyd should be alive today.

“The question we should be asking today is not what kind of protest is most effective – remember Colin Kaepernick was criticized unfairly for taking a knee before football games — but when will justice be served for George Floyd and when will these unnecessary killings stop?”