From George Floyd to Gaza: When Speaking Truth Becomes Dangerous

In 2020, millions took to the streets for George Floyd. Our community demanded an end to state violence. An end to impunity. An end to the quiet acceptance of brutality by those in power. But five years later, that same righteous outrage is missing from much of the discourse around Gaza.

Instead, Gaza has become a litmus test for how much people are willing to risk for justice—and how much they fear telling the truth.

I know, because I’ve lived it. When I reported on the violence unfolding in Gaza, I didn’t just face criticism. I faced death threats. The kind that made me rethink whether I should cover the story again. The kind that made me worry about walking my children to school. The kind that left me mentally exhausted and spiritually shaken.

That’s not just backlash. That’s suppression.

And it’s not new.

In 2020, during the George Floyd uprising, journalists were assaulted and arrested while trying to do their jobs. I remember watching CNN’s Omar Jimenez get arrested live on air. I remember local journalists in Minneapolis—including myself—being shot with rubber bullets and kettled. Dozens were hospitalized. Some were permanently injured. 

So when I started getting death threats for reporting on Gaza, it wasn’t the first time I’d felt fear doing this work. But it was the first time I questioned whether the risks were too great—not just for me, but for my family.

That’s the environment we’re operating in now. And it’s why so many journalists—especially Black and Brown ones—feel paralyzed. Because we know the stakes. We know the backlash is not distributed equally. And we know our voices are more heavily policed when we draw the connections others are too afraid to name.

But the throughline matters.

From Minneapolis to Gaza, the patterns are clear: militarized responses to civilian resistance and the suppression of journalism. Dehumanization and a double standard in whose suffering is believed, whose lives are mourned, and whose deaths are justified.

This is not about equating experiences or flattening complex histories. It’s about recognizing patterns of power and the ways violence—whether by police or by military—is so often defended in the same breath.

And yet, the silence is deafening. The same institutions that said “Black Lives Matter” now issue vague statements or none at all. The same media that aired wall-to-wall coverage of uprisings in 2020 now struggles to say the word “genocide.” Why?

Because Gaza is polarizing. Because truth is dangerous. And because the public’s moral clarity, it turns out, is conditional and not so clear.

More than 200 journalists have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023—by far the deadliest period for journalists in modern history. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, many were not collateral casualties but deliberately targeted. CPJ confirms that at least 171 of the journalists were Palestinian, two Israeli, and six Lebanese individuals. At least 17 of those killings, CPJ says, were direct attacks by Israeli forces and are classified as murders.

Truth-tellers are being silenced not just with threats, but with missiles. With bullets. With erasure.

And here at home, journalists are being fired, banned from platforms, or publicly vilified simply for reporting what they see. The message is clear: tell the wrong truth, and you will be punished.

You can’t be on the frontlines of every issue. But you can—and must—see the patterns. State violence doesn’t happen in isolation. It’s enabled by apathy. By distraction. By fear. By media silence.

We were told the reckoning in 2020 would transform us. But transformation is hard when every truth-teller becomes a target.

Still, some of us keep speaking. Not because we want to—but because we have to. Because if we don’t say it, who will?