Trump’s fanning flames of chaos
■ With built-up anger breaking out across the US following George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, it appears America is still a country deeply divided by race, religion and background, and ruled by a Government which thinks violence must be met with vicious dogs and national guard troops.
White hate groups and racial segregation should be firmly in the past, but it seems the wounds have still not healed.
Soul singer Marvin Gaye summed it up perfectly with his 1971 record What’s Going On? which is still as powerful today as it was back then.
America under Trump has become a police state using heavy-handed arrest tactics for minor offences and Trump, as ever, blaming Minnesota Democrat leaders for the problem has fanned the flames. If ever this troubled nation needed another Martin Luther King, it’s now. Let’s hope Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has some answers.
Reg Barrett, Southminster, Essex
■ Amid the pandemic, the world’s most powerful democracy is burning with racial injustice and, having threatened China over Hong Kong while fuelling unrest in his own country with incendiary tweets, President Trump runs to hide in his bunker. Here in the UK, the world’s oldest democracy is crumbling under the mismanagement of Covid and the corrosive influence of ingrained privilege as Boris Johnson claims to have put ‘one rule for the plebs and another for the elite’ Cummings on the naughty step. If archaic voting systems put Trump and Johnson in power, might sheer public embarrassment and national humiliation rid us of them? Amanda Baker, Edinburgh
■ It is absolutely right that the police officer who killed George Floyd has been arrested for third degree murder. It was disgusting the way the police handled the matter. George’s family will have the image of him pleading for breath for the rest of their lives.
How can human beings, supposedly here to protect us, do something as vile as this? Dorothy Clarke, Bolton
Gtr Manchester
■ The killing of a man by police in Minneapolis has caused widespread rioting to break out across America. But American all-white groups and racists have incited protesters for their own vile ends.
The police officer has been arrested for third degree murder and most likely won’t serve a lot of time. What a shocking state that country is in.
Richard Farrar, South West London
■ President Trump has emerged from his underground bunker at The White House where he cowered from those protesting against the racist police murder of George Floyd to declare, “The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA [anti-fascists] as a Terrorist Organisation”. Nothing, however, about the racists inciting the peaceful protesters. Sasha Simic, North London
■ The shocking scenes of police brutality against protesters and Trump’s inflammatory response to the justifiable anger of the black community beg the question, is America on the verge of civil war? If Trump loses the election then I think the white supremacists and racists will be out in force.
T Lyttle, Manchester
■ It appears clear to me that police brutality is inherent in the USA. They boast that their police are highly trained and the best in the world, yet one of their officers knelt on a suspect’s neck for nine minutes and ignored his pleas with arrogance.
What a country – it is not surprising there are riots.
Guy Middlewood, York