Two days after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce took to social media to express his emotion. He posted an up-close picture of himself to Instagram — but it wasn’t just his own experience Pierce was describing.
“The post included me, but it wasn’t about me,” Pierce said. “It was about any person that’s black, any man that’s black.”
In a widely circulated video, Floyd, who was black, can be seen handcuffed and pinned to the ground as ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, presses his knee to Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes as Floyd cries out that he can’t breathe.