We must raise awareness and take action
Eight minutes and 46 seconds. That’s how long George Floyd was pinned on the ground, under the knee of a white police officer, before becoming unresponsive last month. His alleged crime: paying for a pack of cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill.
In the moments leading up to Floyd’s death, he begged for his life, repeatedly saying, “I can’t breathe.” These same words are a haunting reminder that history repeats itself; another black man, Eric Garner, said the same phrase 11 times before he died in 2014, also at the hands of a white police officer.
Though I cannot claim to know the struggles and difficulties of the African American community, I recognize the injustices black Americans have been forced to face, and I stand with them in full support. I believe it’s critical we raise awareness and take action in any way that we can. Otherwise, how many more people will utter those same words “I can’t breathe”? How many more people will die?
After the death of Floyd, what followed suit was a series of protests and riots across the nation — even the world — many of which continue to take place daily. At these events, people carry signs reading “White silence is violence” and “Defund the police.” In some places, people lay down for eight minutes and 46 seconds and chant those same evocative words.
“I can’t breathe.”
“I can’t breathe.”
“I can’t breathe.”
The protests aren’t just for Floyd. They’re for Garner, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, Ahmaud Arbery and a long list of other black people who have been the victims of racism that cost them their lives. They’re for the generations of racism that people of color have been forced to endure for centuries through slavery, segregation and prejudice.
As June is officially Pride Month for the LGBTQ community, these events also mourn black transgender people who have died in similarly brutal ways, including Tony McDade, a black transgender man who was shot and killed by police just two days after Floyd’s death. His death has barely made national headlines.
The Black Lives Matter movement is important because of the simple fact that we still, unfortunately, need it. If everyone considered that all lives mattered, we wouldn’t need a Black Lives Matter movement, and it is very likely the people mentioned above — and so many more — would still be alive, at home with their mothers, fathers, siblings and children. They would still be able to go to their son’s graduation or their daughter’s white coat ceremony or their friend’s confirmation.
But they’re dead. And so long as white supremacy — both overt and unintentional — continues, we need this movement. As long as black people are being murdered in broad daylight by the systems that are meant to “protect and serve,” we need it.
In his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” Martin Luther King Jr. wrote about why it’s so difficult to “wait” for this change to take place gradually. Freedom, he said, is usually not given freely by the oppressor, and “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”
For decades, African Americans have been advocating for equality; the fact that an act to end segregation was implemented only about 50 years ago is a testament to just how long African Americans have been waiting. And while circumstances are rapidly changing, more change is still needed, not only for those whose names we know — Floyd, Arbery, Taylor — but for the countless victims of prejudice whose stories haven’t made headlines.
Change is needed for the children of color who are being taught how to avoid confrontations with police, and it’s needed for the families who will never be the same. It’s needed for generations upon generations who have been subject to racism, prejudice and brutality simply because of the color of their skin. It’s needed for now. And it’s needed for our future.
Niveditha Bala will be a senior in the fall at Mandela International Magnet School. Contact her at niveditha.bala@mandelainternationalschool.us.