In last weeks blog post, we spoke about the death of George Floyd and what we could do to push for meaningful change towards better policing and to reduce the suffering of blacks and other people of color in America. Since that time, we have seen little movement for change from our government, either here in Utah or in our country. We’ve seen some politicians show some empathy, but many have shown precious little. We’d like to see our elected political leaders, both local and national, act more like some of these Utah community leaders, who have shown great abilities to work across political and cultural divides, and help where they can.

Metui Tautuaa, a police officer who was working during the protests in SLC took a moment to take a knee with the protestors, to show he empathized with them. That small gesture led to many protesters and officers shaking hands and showing good will towards each other.

Lex Scott, a founder of Black Lives Matter Utah, recently condemned any violent activities, and urged people to be more productive in their activism, by joining their community, and signing petitions. She said: “We’re not against police officers by any means. The good ones. But we need those good ones to hold the bad ones accountable and we need our police department to be transparent.” She also thanked the police who showed up to her protest for “doing their job beautifully and protecting our right for freedom of speech.” 

Gary Jensen and Jeff Simmons, the Logan City Police Chief and Assistant Chief recently dropped off bottles of water and some pizza to a protest going on in Logan. The chief explained: “They need to have their worries viewed by the public and their message viewed by the public… The irony of this whole thing is we, the police, are hurting about this whole thing as well, and so this message is not foreign to us. It's a message that we feel in our hearts, as well. We wish that wouldn't have happened to George Floyd." 

Each of these people are doing what they can to show they are willing to work with the other side, and find common ground. They are showing compassion. While our state and country have a long way to go before we can say these issues are resolved, we need people like these mentioned above who are willing to reach across divides to find common ground. The United Utah Party is dedicated to that cause. We praise it in others when we see it, and we promote it amongst ourselves. Utah needs to be united now more than ever.