In the last few months many terrible things have happened: the coronavirus pandemic, the huge forest fires in Australia, extreme weather conditions in parts of the world, and so on.
And there seems no end to the shocking news: Last week the Afro-American George Floyd died tragically in Minneapolis, USA. Apparently, this man had faked a $20 bill but was treated as a serious criminal by the police. Four police officers were present and one of them pushed George Floyd down to the ground and held his knee on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes, even when he repeatedly said that he could not breathe. George Floyd later died in custody. Although the policemen were sacked, initially they were not charged with manslaughter, which they are now.
This act of brutal racism, however, led to protests throughout the United States as people were demanding justice, shouting “Black Lives Matter!”. Racist acts like this are not uncommon in the U.S. (and elsewhere) and in the last year a few young Afro-Americans were killed by the police. As an Afro-American your risk of getting killed is a lot higher than for any white person.
The initially peaceful protests soon turned violent as demonstrators clashed with the policeforce that was sent in to “sort the problem“. Police cars and government buildings were set afire and looters ransacked stores. This civil unrest has been the most widespread in the U.S. in decades. More than 9,000 arrests have been made throughout the country over the past eight days. The imposed curfews, for example in New York, were ignored by many who went out into the streets to demonstrate that it cannot go on like this anymore.
Meanwhile, #blacklivesmatter has been created and their message has also reached Europe. Over 50,000 demonstraters were protesting in Vienna yesterday, claiming that the rights of equality and non-discrimination should apply to everybody, regardless of their skin colour, religious beliefs or else.
by Covaciu David, 5dk
English School Newspaper 