Plateau of equality

George Floyd, the latest in the line of Black people to lose their lives at the hands of white police officers, was buried amid nationwide protests demanding an end to the systemic racism plaguing our society. Focusing on the face of former officer Derek Chauvin, clearly expecting no retribution for his crime, illustrates the manifestation of this problem.

Police officers marching and kneeling with protesters, the removal of Confederate flags and companies pledging to hire

African American and Latino applicants are encouraging signs of change, but police officers resigning in support of officers who pushed a 75-year-old white man to the ground and threats of using the military to quell protests show how far we have to go.

What allows white police officers to devalue the lives of Black citizens who have to remind us that Black lives matter? A Black person earning a college degree does not deprive a white person of a diploma. Fear creates this oppression, the antidote for which is familiarity.

Members of various races and ethnicities getting to know each other as people will pave the way for needed reforms. I challenge everyone to read a book of a genre you usually avoid, call people with whom you interact by name instead of thinking of them as an occupation, and have a chat or a cup of coffee with someone who doesn’t look like you. Then, a plateau of equality can replace the mountain of oppression that maintains its height by crushing those at its foot.

CEINWEN KING-SMITH

Squirrel Hill