The Murder Of George Floyd.

A dark cloud hangs over the world. Like a spectre, it haunts us and our very nature. It is a grim spectre that many assume had disappeared decades ago. It is the spectre of Racism.

The murder of George Floyd on the 25th May 2020 by a police officer in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, has been the catalyst of violence and rioting across the USA, with other protests spreading across the world as well. The initial response by police to the scene was due to reports of a “forgery in process”; that Floyd was using a counterfeit $20 bill to pay for goods at a deli store. However, it quickly became a murder scene.

Police arrested and detained Floyd on the ground in a completely unnecessary manner. Then for at least seven minutes (there is controversy surrounding the length of time of the incident), Officer Derek Chauvin knelt with one knee on Floyd’s neck, strangling Floyd until he was no longer responsive and completely motionless. Floyd was then placed on a stretcher and driven away in an ambulance, where he was pronounced dead. To the point at which he became motionless, Floyd was repeatedly saying to Chauvin “I can’t breathe” and then admitted “I’m about to die”. The events were caught on numerous cameras and phones, one of which was conducting a Facebook Live stream.

Chauvin has since been arrested and charged with Third-degree Murder and Second-degree Manslaughter, and the other three officers who were with him were all fired from the police force.

This is an event that has shocked the world and turned the USA into a melting pot of violence and hatred. But this is not new. The death of George Floyd is one of many horrific deaths of African-American men. The reason that it has caused such outrage is because this one was actually witnessed and recorded to be a matter of public record. The sad truth however is that atrocities like this commonly exist. The only difference is that no one is there to witness them.

Many have condemned the consequential riots and violence in the streets as being unnecessary, taking the matter out of hand, and not being conducted in the memory of George Floyd. And to some degree they are correct.

But the matter was already out of hand, and the initial act was already unnecessary.

So why can a white police officer kneel on a black man’s neck until he is dead, with NO resistance from his fellow police officers whatsoever, but people are brutally repressed for fighting for George and his memory?

This is where the stench of hypocrisy begins to rise through the nostrils, until it makes you sick. The violence between the police and the rioters have not stemmed from a murder of a white man by a black man (which would nevertheless be as equally gruesome and horrific). It stemmed from the murder of a black man by a white police officer, in broad daylight. In the recordings of the murder, you can almost feel the malice and lack of regard for human life. They treated Floyd like he was an animal. Like he was a wildebeest and the officers were lions, supressing their prey until it was dead.

What the video shows is not pretty. Murder and violence never are pretty, and never will be. But everyone needs to watch it, regardless of creed, race, gender, age, or religion. Everyone needs to witness this and apply themselves to the video; imagining someone they love, or even themselves, in the place of George Floyd. Once they have done that, they will only be able to experience for a split second a scintilla of the desperation to live that Floyd felt as he was being murdered in the street. Only then will you understand the riots and the violence.

The riots are a cry out from the underbelly of society, who say ‘we are angry and distraught, and this is the only way we know how to alleviate those emotions.’ It is a catharsis, a purification of society’s conscience. The majority of the rioters are there because it’s the only option they see that can amount to change. They feel as if that is what they must do.

A sense of moral duty is attached to the rioters, most of which see themselves as representing Floyd and his memory when they take a physical battering by the police. Until the rioters’ conscience are clean, they will continue. There is no set time scale for that. Some may feel that their conscience will only be cleansed when the government intervene and act on their behalf. Others may never clean their conscience, and so for them, the battle against racism will always continue.

For Americans, this murder is a mere continuation of the racial segregation that has existed in America since slavery. Racism never left America, it merely stopped being talked about. The open discussion of racism ended with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. These two men are widely regarded as the fathers of the civil rights movement: one promoting non-violence, the other seeing violence as necessary.

These two men did so much for civil rights in America, but there is only so much two men can do. There have been other men of course, of equal bravery and reverence, but it seems to be, from an outsider’s perspective at least, that when both King and X died, public and transparent racism came to an end.

But that could not be further form the truth. Racism is still as fervent and as evil as it always was. The only difference now is that it lies beneath the surface for many people. Both African-Americans and white Americans co-exist in a country that is one event away from causing racism to erupt to the surface once more, as it has done in recent days. This not only shows the fragility of the USA, but also the dis-unity of American society. How can a society function when it’s very foundation is something as horrific as slavery, where a section of society were treated as literally sub-human?

I, the writer, don’t mean to act as if I know everything about racism, because I certainly do not. I probably know the minimum amount. But the minimum amount I do know is that racism is fundamentally wrong.

I don’t care what race, creed, gender, or religion you are. If you are a good person and you are kind and compassionate to others, then I respect you. Only human compassion can end this evil in the world. Only the mutual respect of one man/woman towards another, will stop the rioting, and stop the killing of innocent people.

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