Abby Johnson: George Floyd’s murder might be incompetence, not racism.

bby John­son, the for­mer Planned Par­ent­hood direc­tor who became a “pro-life” super­star, has quite a his­to­ry of racist rants on Twit­ter, as my friend Mary Pez­zu­lo doc­u­ments on her blog. Back in Sep­tem­ber, she used the words “thug” and “stain” to describe Bish­op Tal­bert Swan, who hap­pens to be black, and then pro­ceed­ed to lec­ture him about how he was a dis­grace to his own com­mu­ni­ty. (AJ, in case you did not know, is white. A white woman telling a black man he’s a dis­grace to the black com­mu­ni­ty. “Let me tell you about real racism,” white woman tells black man. You are “an ene­my to your own peo­ple.” Very love­ly.) If I am not mis­tak­en, she delet­ed some of this, but screen­shots are for­ev­er [one / two].

Then a Fil­ipino priest, Fr. Stephanos Pedra­no, inter­vened to ask AJ to apol­o­gize to Bish­op Swan. She pro­ceed­ed to call him a “heretic” who should “not be a priest” and said he should be “purged” from the Church. (I have the screen­shot of that too.)

Mary Pez­zu­lo, again, has more about all this here. Now, it’s bla­tant­ly obvi­ous at this point that Abby John­son is giv­en to racist outbursts—using words like “thug” and “purge” and rep­ri­mand­ing a black man for not being a cred­it to his race. So what should hap­pen when, in Min­neso­ta, a black man is mur­dered by a white police offi­cer? You’ve heard the sto­ry. The police­man, Derek Chau­vin, knelt upon George Floy­d’s neck. Mr. Floyd plead­ed that he could not breathe. Chau­vin kept kneel­ing. Mr. Floyd plead­ed that he hurt every­where. Chau­vin kept kneel­ing. Mr. Floyd plead­ed that he was going to die. Chau­vin kept kneel­ing.

You’ve seen the pho­tos of this.

What does Abby John­son say? Here is what she tweet­ed ear­li­er:

What if George Floy­d’s death was­n’t about racism? What if it was about sheer incom­pe­tence? I’m not say­ing it’s not about racism. I’m just ask­ing … what if it’s not? Are we able to sep­a­rate the two any­more?

I’m sorry—actually, I’m not sorry—but this is disin­ge­nous. You don’t get to play inno­cent (I’m not say­ing it’s not racism) when your whole point is to float the pos­si­bil­i­ty that this is all mere “incom­pe­tence.” In a dif­fer­ent tweet she con­ced­ed that George Floyd was mur­dered. But if mere “incom­pe­tence” is to blame, it could­n’t be mur­der; it might be invol­un­tary manslaugh­ter. But murder—which AJ says it is—is a delib­er­ate act. It does not come of “incom­pe­tence,” and it’s disin­gen­u­ous and irre­spon­si­ble to even float such a pos­si­bil­i­ty.

Remem­ber: Chau­vin knelt on Mr. Floy­d’s neck and con­tin­ued to kneel even while he plead­ed that he could not breathe and was in dis­tress. Incom­pe­tence is not a pos­si­bil­i­ty. It’s blind­ing your­self to the real issue to scratch your chin and say, Well, we should real­ly dis­tin­guish between racism and incom­pe­tence, you know.

AJ tries to play the “most cops are good” card. “Incom­pe­tence does not nec­es­sar­i­ly equal racism,” she insists. “MOST cops aren’t bad.”

Right. We’re not talk­ing about “most cops.” We’re talk­ing about the one who mur­dered George Floyd. This is all will­ful dis­trac­tion on AJ’s part, as I see it.

But when she’s round­ly raked over the coals for all this [one / two / three / four] AJ wails with affect­ed inno­cence that that she’s just ask­ing ques­tions: WHY CAN’T WE ASK QUESTIONS ANYMORE?????????????????????????

Sor­ry not sor­ry, these do not come across as ques­tions in good faith. They come across as racist gaslight­ing.

But what if it’s just incom­pe­tence?

Most cops are good.

White peo­ple aren’t racist.

(Yes, she said that too, in an amaz­ing attempt to dial it back with­out actu­al­ly recant­i­ng.)

As far as I am aware, no one says that white peo­ple in the aggre­gate are racists, so AJ goes to great trou­ble to swat down a claim no one is mak­ing while leav­ing the real racism uncon­front­ed and, indeed, brushed aside in favor of dis­trac­tion. AJ is try­ing here to change the con­ver­sa­tion away from racism and toward some­thing that’s far less uncom­fort­able. She tries to write it off as just a lone incom­pe­tent cop.

Mean­while, cops con­tin­ue to tar­get and prey upon and even mur­der black men who pose no threat at all.

And Abby John­son is who the pro-life move­ment holds up as a mod­el spokesman for the cause?