Again, there is so much I disagree with you about that it’s difficult to know where to start.
So I will start in the context of the maritime domain and how these events can improve our working relationships at sea.
Here’s the thing. We are all busy. We have other things going on. There are so many issues, how do you focus on one? Which one issue should we focus on? Is this topic more important than that one? Or are we wasting our time?
What events like this bring is mutual awareness across the entire maritime industry and (in this case) far beyond.
When the El Faro sank many on this forum said that an investigation was useless. The only thing that mattered was that the captain got too close to the hurricane. Why do we need months of testimony to tell us that? What good would that do? It will only drag things out for the families who are in pain.
Same goes for the titanic. The titanic lead to SOLAS but 3/4 of the stuff in SOLAS has nothing to do with how or why the Titanic sunk.
But each event caused us to explore tangentially related issues that, may not have prevented that incident, but sure as hell can save lives in the future.
So it doesn’t matter if Floyd was a good man or not.
It doesn’t matter why Captain Smith never slowed down when the Titanic reached fog.
It doesn’t matter what Captain Davidson was thinking aboard the El Faro that night.
What matters are the thousands of Captains who have stopped to ask how they can use the Titanic and el faro investigation reports to make their ships safer.
What matters is the millions of people who are using today’s events to make the world around them more equal and fair.
There is nothing I can do to fix the Minneapolis situation but I can use the opportunity to listen to the minorities around me and think hard about what I can do in my local communities (gCaptain being one of them) to improve the lives of those around me.
Some have emailed me to say that certain minority groups are being opportunistic, using this incident to push their agenda. Well you could say that lifeboat manufacturers today that are using the el faro report to push shipping companies into replacing open lifeboats are being opportunistic… and maybe they are… but if the result is that my crew is safer then I am happy they are doing so.
Was Floyd George a saint or criminal? How about Davidson and Smith? I don’t know. What I do know is that all three where humans and all humans are flawed. I also know that each gave us a gift. A unique opportunity to collectively focus on the problems their tragedy exposed. To ask questions. To challenge longstanding beliefs. To consider different perspectives. To find a way to be better sailors and more compassionate humans.
And that’s the question that matters most to me. Do we come together, as we did after the Titanic, and use this global tragedy to improve in a multitude of ways, or do we waste it by focusing too narrowly on a few details and by arguing about whether not it’s worthwhile to discuss the matter further?
You know my answer to that question: BLACK LIVES MATTER.