The president, the protesters and the plague of police violence
The killing of George Floyd was shocking. But to be surprised by it is a privilege African Americans do not have.
A black person is killed by a police officer in America at the rate of more than one every other day. Floyd’s death followed those of Breonna Taylor, an emergency medical technician shot at least eight times inside her Louisville, Ky., home by plainclothes police executing a no-knock warrant, and Ahmaud Arbery, killed in a confrontation with three white men as he jogged through their neighborhood in Brunswick, Ga. Even Floyd’s anguished gasps were familiar, the same words Eric Garner uttered on a Staten Island street corner in 2014: “I can’t breathe.”
Yet the timing and cruelty of Floyd’s death, captured in a horrific video that shows the white Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin casually kneeling on the victim’s neck, has spurred a national uprising. Since Floyd died on May 25, demonstrations have erupted in scores of cities across the country as veteran activists and newfound allies alike rally to the cause of racial justice. The vast majority of the protests have been peaceful, with simple demands handwritten on torn pieces of cardboard. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH. STOP KILLING US. JUSTICE FOR GEORGE FLOYD. Those pleas have resonated around the world,
