The best side of everyone here

Erm…what?

I’m as baffled as the people who jump up shouting “What are you doing?!”

https://twitter.com/bentaub91/status/1267840280214069248

The Post and Courier talked to him afterwards:

“I am not your enemy,” Givionne “Gee” Jordan Jr. told the officers. “All of you are my family.”

Emotion caught his voice. Other protesters crouched over him, their hands on his shoulders as he spoke. “I love each and every one of you. I want to understand all of you. I want to. I would love to see the best side of everyone here.”

So, naturally, they arrested him.

In an interview with The Post and Courier, Jordan, a 23-year-old Charleston resident, said he spent the night in the county jail. He was charged with disobeying a lawful order, according to a police report.

The police chief says yes but we had told them to disperse. We told them many times. We said they’d be arrested if they didn’t.

Ok but then that takes the question back a step: why did the police tell them to disperse?

Reynolds did not say why officers seemed to single Jordan out from the crowd. Jordan said he was arrested around 5 p.m., well before Charleston’s 6 p.m. curfew.

Reynolds stressed that officers were also on high alert Sunday after a night of unrest Saturday, which included fires and looting.

Ok but does a guy kneeling and talking passionately about love and understanding suggest a guy bent on fires and looting?

Jordan was among a crew who volunteered to clean up downtown Sunday morning. He swept the streets and carried plywood to help business owners board up their storefronts. In the afternoon he headed to Marion Square, near King Street.

A crowd of about 200 gathered. At some point, Jordan, a black man, knelt on the ground.

“My plan was to get all the people beside me, kneeling behind me, kneeling with me,” he said in an interview. “Showing the cops that we are no threat. We are no threat at all. We just want to make the world better.”

In the video, several white protesters can be seen crouching around him, placing their hands on him.

They started doing that when his voice started breaking.

“I would love to see the best side of everybody here,” Jordan told police. “This is not the best side of everybody here.”

So they uttered not a word, and arrested him.

8 Responses to “The best side of everyone here”