● İpek Özerim,
THIS past week the world has been gripped by angry scenes across the United States. Americans have taken to the streets in their tens of thousands in 75 cities to protest against the murder of George Floyd, a 46-yearold unarmed black man, in Minneapolis on 25 May.
Mr Floyd had been arrested in a store after trying to pay for goods using a counterfeit 20 dollar bill. The four arresting officers handcuffed the father of one and put him face down on the street. One of the officers then proceeded to kneel on Mr Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.
Despite desperate and repeated pleas from Mr Floyd that he couldn’t breathe, the officer Derek Chauvin, refused to remove his knee. Mr Floyd called out for his mother, for water, for mercy, his bladder burst, but neither officer Chauvin nor his three colleagues Tou Thao, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas Lane batted an eye lid.
His colleagues instead kept bystanders away, who were screaming for the police to stop. One was an off duty healthcare professional, another a firefighterwho tried but was prevented from checking Mr Floyd’s pulse. It was a modern day lynching in broad daylight on a busy American high street.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey promptly sacked the officers, but it took days of violent protests before the four officers were charged with homicide, and aiding and abetting second-degree murder.
The arrests have not been enough to dampen the rage of African-Americans, who continue to protest in large numbers. And it’s understandable. George Floyd’s death is the latest in a long line of unlawful killings of black men, women and children by police officers.
Among the most notable was Eric Garner, who was choked to death by a New York police officer in July 2014, despite uttering the words “I can’t breathe” 11 times. The officer was fired, but never prosecuted.
Teenager Michael Brown was shot dead in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014, promptingriotsin protest at his senseless death. The officer in questioned resigned, but was never prosecuted.
Tamir Rice, a boy of 12, was shot dead in Cleveland, Ohio by a police officer on 22 November 2014 while playing with a toy gun. The police claimed they had received reports of a gun on the street. There were no prosecutions.
Walter Scott died on 4 April, after being shot in the back five times by a white police officer. The officer claimed he fired in selfdefence and no action would have been taken but for video emerging to prove the officer had lied. He was eventually fired and sentenced to 20 years in jail.
In February of this year, jogger
Ahmaud Arbery, was shot dead by a retired officer and his son while out for a run in his Georgia neighbourhood. No action was taken until a video appeared online showing Arbery had been arbitrarily executed. The suspects have since been taken into custody.
On 13 March Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician was killed after being shot eight times when officers entered her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky.The police had raided the wrong addresswhen they were executing a search warrant for drugs, and claimed they had fired back in self-defence.
Ms Taylor’s family has filed a lawsuit for wrongful death and excessive force.
The names of those unlawfully killed go on and on. And it’s clear to any sane person that in the USA, if you are a person of colour, you have every reason to fear law enforcement, because they can act with impunity, kill you if they so desire, and the chances are they will get away with it.
That is why the Black Lives Matter movement was launched in 2013, to counter “the pandemic of racism and discrimination”, to coin a phrase used by George Floyd’s lawyer, that exists in America. It is a vile sickness that permeates right up to the White House, with a President who would rather turn the military on protestors than get to grips with the unlawful killings of black people by police officers, and who orders lawmakers to deem anti-fascist activists (‘ANTIFA’) “terrorists” while ignoring the threat from white supremacists. Indeed, President Trump has regularly associated with and retweeted content from hardened racists.
Just what have black people done to deserve this much hatred and oppression in America? They were abducted and brought from Africa to North America by white Europeans 400 years ago,and forced into slavery. They endured every conceivable brutalisation a human being can bear, from beatings to beheadings, mutilations, lynching, and rape. Even when slavery was abolished, they were treated as second class citizens than can be killed at whim.
Their civil rights leaders, from Martin Luther King to Malcolm X, have been assassinated. Their efforts to grow economically curtailed in a country built off the backs of slaves and the oppressed. And here we are today in 2020, and we see that still the evil of racism looms large in their lives. It exists across every structure in American society: from housing to employment, health, schools, the justice system and foreign policy. It is the legacy of white supremacists that lives on as white privilege.
What should black citizens of America do? If they stay calm, nothing changes. If they protest and a few idiots – the anarchists and thieves — take advantage for their own mischievous ends, all are tarred with the same criminal brush.
Protest is a must and the USA will inevitably burn if it continues to ignore the rights and pain of 40 million African Americans (about 13per cent of the population). Iconic activist King understood that “riots were the language of the unheard.”
In a talk Meghan Markle gave to alumni of her former LA High School at Immaculate Heart this week, she recalled the wise words of her teacher, who said: “Always remember to put others’ needs above your own fears.” African Americans have legitimate concerns and vital needs –there can be no more excuses in addressing them. White America must remove its knee from their necks and let them breathe!