George Floyd and Systemic Racism in America On May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis, George Floyd was pinned face down on the ground, in handcuffs, by white police officer Derek Chauvin who pressed his knee against Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes. The incident was caught on camera, and police bodycam footage shows Floyd said he could not breathe more than 20 times. In response to this tragedy, protests erupted. The protests began in Minneapolis on May 25th and spread to other cities. By June 7th, international protests erupted. Buildings were set on fire in multiple cities across the country. The History of Police Brutality in the United States The modern police force that we know today was established in the early 1900s, but its origins date back to the colonies. It was a system that was created based on racist sentiments: Some parts of the country started policing communities to control new immigrants, while other regions created groups to control slaves. According to the NationalTrialLawyers.org, “New United States police organizations had two principal elements: they were reputably corrupt and blatantly cruel.” As African-Americans fled the Jim Crow south, they too became the victims of northern corrupt policing along with recent European immigrants. Examples of corrupt policing during the Jim Crow era included mandating segregation by beating African-Americans who violated these laws and disregarding the lynchings of African-Americans. In 1931, President Herbert Hoover established the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement as a way to investigate crime related in addition to policing tactics. This revealed the realities of police brutality and brought it to light. In the 1960s, aggressive dispersion tactics such as dogs and fire hoses against people in peaceful protests and sit-ins were the publicized examples of police brutality.
However, it was the violent policing in Black and communities of color that built distrust. In 1991, following the beating of cab driver Rodney King, video footage told the story of police brutality television to a national audience. Today social media posts blasted the incident of police brutality into the mainstream media.
“The Washington Post has compiled one of the most thorough datasets available when it comes to fatal police shootings, and it has sparked debate over what it means when it comes to racial bias in police killings. The data show that more than half of the people fatally shot by police in America within the last five years were actually white — but fatal police shootings of Black people were disproportionately high, considering they account for roughly 13% of the US population.”
The History of The Black Lives Matter Movement In 2013, three Black female organizers Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi created a Black-centered political will and movement building project called Black Lives Matter. It began as a social media hashtag, #BlackLivesMatter, after George Zimmerman was acquitted for killing African-American teen, Trayvon Martin.
In 2014 the movement grew nationally as a response to the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. According to the Black Lives Matter website, their mission is to “eradicate white supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes. By combating and countering acts of violence, creating space for Black imagination and innovation, and centering Black joy, we are winning immediate improvements in our lives.” As the movement and the hashtag gained national attention, it also attracted hate and counter protests. “All Lives Matter” was born out of “Black Lives Matter” mainly out of confusion as they belive/d that the Black Lives Matter motto stands for a divisive message. Through its use, “all lives matter” has also become associated with white supremacy and racism. Another countermovement to Black lives Matter is Blue Lives Matter. Similar to the phrase All Lives Matter, Blue lives matter is a phrase used by people who favor the police and oppose the Black Lives Matter Movement.
GR, “Systematic Racism Timeline” (2021)
A First Hand Account: 1) How do you politically identify? I lean more towards the Republican party spectrum. 2) How did you react to the murder of George Floyd? George Floyd's death was an act of unacceptable behavior done by those who we have trusted with our lives.
Hafa, Obedi “Facebook Profile Picture” via facebook (2017)
3) What are your opinions on the Black Lives Matter Movement? BLM is a movement with good intentions but in our time we need more than good intentions. We need people who have visions and can see the core of issues so that they can lead us into destroying the root of our issues. Police brutality is a symptom of a bigger issue that has to be addressed as a whole. 4) Have you attended a Black Lives Matter Protest, if so why or why not? I have never actively attended a black lives matter protest because they tend to get violent as we have seen in the news. Change is needed, but the way BLM protestors fight for it is not effective. Although I haven’t attended a BLM protest, I have driven through and seen these protests.
GR, “The Cycle of The Response to Racism” (2021) Works Cited “About.” B lack Lives Matter, 16 Oct. 2020, blacklivesmatter.com/about/. Bennett, Dalton, et al. “The Death of George Floyd: What Video and Other Records Show about His Final Minutes.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 30 May 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/05/30/video-timeline-george-floyd-dea th/?arc404=true. “A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States: The Black Lives Matter Movement.” H USL Library, library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/BLM.
Shayanne Gal, Andy Kiersz. “26 Simple Charts to Show Friends and Family Who Aren't Convinced Racism Is Still a Problem in America.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 8 July 2020, www.businessinsider.com/us-systemic-racism-in-charts-graphs-data-2020-6. velocity9999, and velocity9999. “The History of American Police Brutality.” T he National Trial Lawyers, 27 July 2020, thenationaltriallawyers.org/2020/07/the-history-of-american-police-brutality/.