‘Don’t let racism in the USA distract us from our own’
THE appalling murder of George Floyd, a black man whose life was brutally taken away by a white police officer who knelt on his neck, rightly outraged not just America but the rest of the world.
The video of his unimaginable arrest is difficult for anyone to listen to let alone watch.
For five minutes Mr Floyd is seen begging for his life, pleading “I can’t breathe”, but even when he falls unconscious, Minneapolis cop Derek Chauvin refuses to take his weight off.
It is the latest in a long line of black deaths at the hands of white cops I have covered in the seven years of living in the States.
People like Walter Scott, Michael Brown, Philando Castile, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner and Tamir Rice are just a few of those who, if not for the inexcusable actions of police, would still be here today.
But, although Mr Floyd’s death is no more serious than theirs, it seems finally a movement has come together that is so strong, change will come.
Whereas before the public has been deprived of the full picture, through lack of evidence or police lies, the 46-year-old’s murder is clear and unequivocal.
There is no get-out. There is no justification.
We see Mr Floyd’s murder for precisely what it is, and the solidarity and condemnation witnessed across the world and in the UK cannot go unanswered.
Change must come. And not only in the States.
But seeing America’s racist status quo, which sees black people confronted with potentially life-threatening altercations with police without ever committing a crime, being compared to that in the UK is hard to justify.
Since Mr Floyd’s death, many comparisons have been drawn between Britain and the US with some saying there are “disturbing parallels” between the two.
While running the risk of being accused of ‘whitesplaining’, and speaking from my experience of seeing the shocking way African American people are treated here, to say black people in Britain suffer the same police brutality is difficult to argue.
Having personally spoken to the grieving families of men gunned down and killed by trigger-happy white cops, and to men and women brutally beaten for no reason other than the colour of their skin by racist police, it is hard to find a “disturbing parallel”.
Black Americans are stopped here on a daily basis not knowing if they will get out alive.
Of course, there are disgraceful incidents in the UK.
Of course we have racism within our police – even officers who are prepared to lie to cover up their crimes.
But to argue anyone should fear death every time they are stopped in the UK downplays how bad and how brutal America has become, while also doing a disservice to the thousands of genuinely good British officers there are.
Some argue that it is an insult to tell black British people that this is an American experience and that they shouldn’t draw comparisons too. In part, they are correct.
You only need to look at UK incarceration rates to see for yourself.
But while there are similarities between the black experience in Britain and America, there are also differences, none more so than when it comes to police brutality.
On both sides of the Atlantic, systemic racism exists, but it is wrong not to address them on their own terms and within the context of their own cultures.
To make a like-for-like comparison is inflammatory.
America has huge problems when it comes to racism, greater now than they have been since the Sixties.
But we should not let their racism distract us from the issues in Britain.
Trying to inflame our cities into holding American-style disturbances is absurd.
Black people in the US are being shot dead, maimed by police bullets, brutally beaten. They are stopped by police, time and time again and don’t know if they will leave alive.
Are we really saying that is the same in the UK?
Looting and rioting won’t bring racial justice in Britain, only peace can bring that.