Ryan and Melissa Hamilton pose with their children, Augustin and Sophia Elyse, in September 2019 following their daughter’s baptism at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. COURTESY RYAN HAMILTON

The now viral video of George Floyd’s death came across Ryan Hamilton’s social media on the evening of Memorial Day, before it was a major news story. “Oh, another one,” he thought.

He’s been desensitized, he said, by other videos of white police brutality against black men, situations that never make it to national news. He thought Floyd’s killing would be similar.

But then “it spiraled,” he said. “It went from ‘just another one’ to a world-changing event in just a matter of days.”

The video, taken by a bystander around 8:15 p.m. Memorial Day, shows Floyd handcuffed, face down on the ground, begging to breathe for minutes while a police officer kneeled on his neck for almost nine minutes, even after, even after Floyd became unresponsive. Floyd, a 46-year-old African American, was later pronounced dead at Hennepin County Medical Center

Instead of silence, Floyd’s death has spurred protests and riots in the Twin Cities and around the United States. The media attention it has received and the conversations about racism it’s inspired, both on TV and at kitchen tables, mean one thing to Hamilton: George Floyd’s death has got to be the last one.

Hamilton, a 40-year-old Catholic who lives in north Minneapolis, knows the Church must be part of the change. “It’s evil unchecked,” he said of race-related violence.

Hamilton grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, where he was one of the few African Americans attending his Catholic grade school, he said. He was a D1 track and field athlete at Wake Forest University, where he earned a degree in history before going to Tulane Law School. He worked I politics in Washington and Minnesota, but now works at the University of Minnesota on creating a diverse network of suppliers. He and his wife, Melissa, have two young children and attend the Basilica of St. Mary and Our Lady of Lourdes, both in Minneapolis.

Hamilton shared his perspective on the Christian response to Floyd’s death June 4 in a livestreamed conversation with Enzo Randazzo, men’s evangelization manager for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ Office of Marriage, Family and Life.

When Hamilton moved to Minnesota, he thought he’d be moving to the “Promised Land” of the north, where racism had long been overcome, he told The Catholic Spirit June 3. But a friend warned him that racism in Minnesota is more subtle. Hamilton said he had an easy time making friends, but felt like, as a black man, he had to put on a particular front to put white people at ease. It’s a burden, he said. The one place he really feels he can be completely himself and be accepted is at church, he said.

“I’ve always been able to walk in my church and feel a part of it,” he said. “I just assume that they’re going to accept me: ‘I don’t have to put on a front for you guys, because we’re just all the same people anyway.’

Like many Minnesotans, Ryan and Melissa were glued to social media coverage of the protests until early morning hours. They sent their kids to stay with cousins outside of the city for a few days. They were concerned for their own neighborhood, since they live near the Fourth Police Precinct, which drew protests after police shot and killed Jamar Clark, an African American man, nearby in 2015 during an altercation. After rioters burned the Third Precinct building along Lake Street May 28, they thought the Fourth would be next. Demonstrators did blow up a squad car there, but most of the vandalism and fires in north Minneapolis were along Broadway Avenue

“It’s surreal, it’s absolutely surreal,” he said of seeing his neighborhood like that. He wishes Gov. Tim Walz would have brought in the National Guard May 26, when the rioting first began.

He looks at the thousands of protestors through the eyes of a former lobbyist, and he hopes people will also show up at the Minnesota State Capitol en masse to lobby for policy changes that directly impact people of color, such as education or home ownership disparities. “I feel like people go out and protest, but when it’s time to show up at the Capitol, they’re not there,” he said.

Because of that, he used to be against protesting, he said, but the Floyd-related protests have been challenging that. “This one has to change my heart on that, because there is a need for that, for protesting just to grab the attention,” he said. “Now, the second line is to follow up with the actual policy change, and that’s what I hope I can be a part of.”

He thinks about his own run-ins with police, some of whom have humiliated him, he said, in what he interpreted as a race-related power trip.

Others have shown great humanity. He recalled speeding back to work immediately after his first child’s ultrasound, euphoric to know the baby was a boy and healthy. The speed limit changed, and a police officer pulled him over. He remembers being careful – keeping his hands in view, telling the officer he was going to show him a paper, the ultrasound photos, to explain why he hadn’t been attentive to the signs. The officer went back to his car, and was gone a long time. When he returned, he brought a teddy bear, and said he remembered being new dad himself. Hamilton’s son, Augustin, sleeps with that bear, he said.

“That’s the treatment every human being should receive from the police,” he said.

Because the Church teaches about the dignity of every person, the Catholic response to Floyd’s death and racism in general should be clear, Hamilton said. But, he said, Catholics need to embrace their Catholic identity every day of the week, not only Sundays.

“It’s to the point that that casual, not-being-true-to-the-principals-of-their-Catholic-faith, is in some cases actually letting that evil fester, because it’s turning a blind eye to evil and letting it run rampant,” he said. “So, I like to think of ‘what you do for the least of my people’ — where’s that Monday through Saturday?”

Jesus didn’t separate himself from the poor or delegate his work to others, Hamilton said. “Jesus got his hands dirty,” he said. “He lived among the poor.”

Catholics need to pray and examine their consciences, he added, focusing on the words in the Act of Contrition of “failing to do good.” People need to pay attention and ask questions, he said.

“I’d want white, Minnesota Catholics to examine their conscience: Where have you have failed to do good? And in doing so, I think that’s where the answers will come in their role in all of this, and how to renew the face of the earth.”

Hamilton said since a faith conversion he experienced around age 30, he’s “led with his Catholicism” in terms of his own identity, and wants other Catholics to do the same.

“If people are leading with their whiteness, and it just so happens I’m Catholic, then that’s the problem,” he said. “I invite people to lead with their Catholicism, lead with their faith in terms of their worldview, and see where it takes us. I think that will be our role in making things better.”

And it’s something he wants to impress upon his young children. Because Melissa is white, Hamilton gave some thought to how their children might identify — black? white? biracial? — and then he decided, before they were born, to eliminate identity confusion

“I’m going to tell my kids they’re Catholic: that’s your race, that’s your identity,” he said. “I’m going to teach them to lead with that.”