Spencer Finley

Politics Editor

sjf5814@psu.edu

On Monday, January 17, 2022, Penn State Behrend hosted a chat with Philonase Floyd, activist and brother of George Floyd. The event was scheduled to be held in the Metzgar Building, but because of the recent snowstorm, the event had to be moved to Zoom at the last minute. Floyd was invited to speak at Behrend as part of the college’s commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this year. The College also screened a documentary and encouraged students and faculty to participate in a day of service in honor of the holiday. 

Floyd did not give a speech; rather, he instead participated in a moderated question and answer session with a few members of Behrend student leadership, including the President of the Student Government Association and members of the Multicultural Council and the Association of Black Collegians. Because the talk was not a lecture, the event had a more conversational tone.

During the talk, Floyd discussed several topics, including the pain and trauma caused by his brother’s death in 2020. He said that he was out of town the day that his brother was murdered because of his occupation as a truck driver. “It was the day after. I was on my way out of town to Oklahoma for work. Someone sent me a photo of a man and I sent it to my cousin and my cousin said, ‘that’s him,’ ” he said. He added that “I immediately started crying.”He talked about the pain of watching his brother get murdered by the police, saying that his brother was “tortured,” and that “all you need is an inch of humanity to know that it was wrong.”

He also talked about his brother, saying that “He was a big brother, not just to me but a lot of individuals who I grew up around, because a lot of us grew up without a father in the household.” He also talked about his brother’s desire that people not be afraid of him because of his appearance, saying that “He just wanted to be loved, he didn’t want anyone to fear him. He used to say to me, ‘When people see me, they have fear and I don’t want individuals to be scared of me.’”

He also discussed his own activism since May of 2020 and his desire to “turn pain into purpose.” Since 2020, Floyd has been working as an activist for police reform; he said that “I get up every day and try my best to try to change laws, make sure other individuals don’t have to go through what my brother had to go through.” He has recently been working to ensure the passage of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which is currently awaiting a vote in the Senate. He added that “We shouldn’t have to be talking about this, but if you can make federal laws to protect a bird, as we did for the bald eagle, then you can make laws that protect people of color.”