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Jack Ciattarelli Statement on George Floyd

Jack Ciattarelli

By Jack Ciattarelli

Six weeks ago, an unarmed man was needlessly confronted and then killed in Georgia. Last week, a New York City woman became unhinged and reckless in the presence of a harmless man. And this week, America witnessed the murder of a helpless George Floyd. The victims, all black, were our fellow Americans. Fellow citizens who deserved “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

What is happening to us? The passage of time is supposed to make us more tolerant, more respectful, more accepting, more civil, less ignorant. 

People everywhere who are deeply troubled by these tragedies cannot help but feel a sense of powerlessness and hopelessness. What’s the answer? New anti-hate laws? New sensitivity programs? New community policing initiatives? If only it were that simple. 

Let us not make the mistake, once again, of trivializing hate crimes by merely calling for new public policies. We need something much more than that. Something truly meaningful and enduring, not violent or destructive, for, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness . . . hate cannot drive out hate.” 

These tragedies, as well as the inequities and disparities exposed by the pandemic, demand an awakening. We desperately need a paradigm shift in our perceptions, attitudes, and consciousness. We desperately need recognition of and commitment to improved human relations. No public policy can achieve that. Only leadership and appeal to “the better angels of our nature” can. 

All of us, each and every day, must do something that helps bring an end to indecency, hatred, and bias. All of us, each and every day, must be a shining example of tolerance and respect. All of us, each and every day, must call out intolerance, isolating those who engage in hate and bigotry. 

We are not powerless, nor can we be hopeless. To be either is to surrender and further dishonor George Floyd. Instead, let us honor him by rededicating ourselves to a better existence, making our community better, and fulfilling our individual and sacred obligation to our country, accepting, yet once again, the challenge given to us by a grieving Civil War President: “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.”

Jack Ciattarelli is a former NJ Assemblyman who represented the 16th legislative district–parts of Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex and Somerset Counties. He is a candidate for the Republican nomination for NJ Governor in 2021.

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Posted: May 31st, 2020 | Author: | Filed under: Jack Ciattarelli | Tags: , , , | 4 Comments »

4 Comments on “Jack Ciattarelli Statement on George Floyd”

  1. Mahatma Cane said at 9:35 pm on May 31st, 2020:

    Isn’t this the same RINO that had nothing good to say about our POTUS? Yet he wants to be Governor of NJ? We might be better off with the alligator wrestler Rullo

  2. Richard DeVito said at 6:32 am on June 1st, 2020:

    Mahatma Cane, yes this is that same RINO. The same RINO that found his way to Trump’s Wildwood rally to take pictures shaking hands with everyone OUTSIDE, so that he could post them the next morning. Unfortunately, he didn’t actually attend the rally, or get one picture shaking hands with Trump. A few weeks later, after witnessing the 175K Trump supporters at the Wildwood rally, this RINO stated that President Trump has finally earned HIS RESPECT. The way I see it, if this RINO opportunist actually expects to beat Murphy in 2021, he will have to earn Trump’s respect, and ours.

  3. Mahatma Cane said at 10:03 am on June 1st, 2020:

    Ricard DeVito: well put. I sort of had hope that Ciattarelli might bring some unity and a positive outlook to the NJ Republican Party, but having watched his antics this past year has left me saddened. He is the true depiction of RINO, and worse yet he speaks through both sides of his mouth like a true DemoRat. Earning Trump’s respect is simply a party thing, bnut earning the voters respect will be a true undertaking for him. In the meantime, Alligator wrestler Rullo is building a broad base of FakeBook followers with their collection of Republican groups. But, again, he comes across as a slippery eel of a person to me. I pray that the party can come up with a true contender before it is too late. One more term of Snaggletooth Murphy and the state will both be morally and financially bankrupt.
    NJ will become a vast wasteland with no citizens left to tax.

  4. Shaun is trying said at 7:40 am on June 7th, 2020:

    but the word is the head honchos at the state level want him as the LT.