- TIME: Why The Killing of George Floyd Sparked an American Uprising... Archived Message
Posted by alquds43
on June 5, 2020, 8:33 pm
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Tme Magazine: Why The Killing of George Floyd Sparked an American Uprising Alex Altman @aaltman82 June 4, 2020 ..... In a way, Black Lives Matter has been a victim of its own accomplishments: it articulated a language of subjugation that could be applied to causes such as immigration or gender or class. Systemic injustice became about everything, rather than the original thing, which was police killing black people. Photo:[derek chauvin arrested george floyd minneapolis Stephen Maturen—Getty ImagesA portrait of George Floyd hangs on a street light pole as police officers stand guard at the Third Police Precinct during a face off with a group of protesters in Minn., Minnesota, May 27, 2020.] That hasn’t stopped. From 2015 to 2019, according to statistics compiled by the Washington Post, police shot and killed 962 to 1,004 Americans each year. Black Americans are nearly three times as likely as white people to be killed by police, according to the database Mapping Police Violence. The killings are continuing apace this year. Except now it seems to many as if the nation has moved on. “For us to get the attention that we need, we’ve gotta set things on fire,” says James Talton, a 32-year-old New York fitness instructor. “Because it seems like nobody’s paying attention.” Nationwide riots, a virus that has killed more than 100,000 Americans, a President threatening to unleash the military on citizens–how much more can the country bear? Every day in this awful, exhausting year feels like rock bottom, and then we tunnel further into some hideous crawl space. More than 40 million jobs have vanished in 10 weeks. One in four Americans is out of work. And the reckoning continues. It feels both terrible and fitting that the struggle poised to define the final months before a bitterly divisive election is a conflict that dates to America’s founding, a force so powerful it can push even a once-in-a-century pandemic aside. Those who have fought for racial justice for years–for decades–are resolute. “I believe that we have been working these past four years to get back in the ring with Trump,” says Byrd. “And I truly believe that we will win.” George Floyd died at dusk on Memorial Day, outside the Cup Foods grocery store at East 38th Street and Chicago Avenue in South Minneapolis. Floyd had bought a pack of cigarettes with what the clerk suspected was a counterfeit $20 bill. Three squad cars converged to confront him as he sat in the driver’s seat of a blue Mercedes SUV. Derek Chauvin’s was the last to arrive. Since joining the Minneapolis police force in 2001, Chauvin has been the subject of at least 17 conduct complaints, almost all of which were closed without discipline, according to city records. He was involved in at least three cases in which a police officer shot a civilian. Another of the officers involved in Floyd’s arrest, Tou Thao, was the subject of at least six complaints, five of which resulted in no discipline (one is still under investigation). In 2017, Thao was sued in federal court for excessive use of force over allegations he beat up a suspect during an arrest. The city settled for $25,000, according to a legal filing. (Attorneys for Chauvin and Thao did not respond to requests for comment.) ..... More details here: https://time.com/5847967/george-floyd-protests-trump/ |
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