Enlight 21

George Floyd and Human Rights

Author: Victor Wan | Category: Human Rights | Date: 06-03-2020

On May 25, 2020, Minneapolis police officers arrested George Floyd, a black man in his mid-40s, after being accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill to pay for food. The footage of this arrest showed Officer Derek Chauvin pressing his knee of Floyd’s neck, making it difficult for Floyd to breathe. In the videos spread across social media, Floyed muttered the words, “I can’t breathe” and “You’re going to kill me”. Officer Chauvin did not budge, and continued pressing his knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds until Floyd lay still on the ground. This video spread rapidly across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and many more social media apps and sparked controversy among the African American population, accusing Chauvin of murder. To many Americans and others around the world, this moment caught on camera was considered one of the most definite and obvious examples of white privilege and African American injustice and abuse.

To answer the prompt, I believe that George Floyd’s death should be considered murder. A police officer, whose role is to serve and protect the people of America, should not be targeting a black man and choking him to death by cutting off their respiration. It was very clear in the video that Floyd already couldn’t breathe when the officer had his knee on Floyd’s neck, and the fact that it was a white officer blatantly killing a black man made the situation more widespread and severe, leading many to draw conclusions that white privilege exists. There were also many other cases where white police officers suppressed the voices from the African American victims, and this situation was the breaking point of African American injustice, generating hatred and anger towards many police forces in major cities across the nation.

I think that the riots in major American cities are not justified. Despite the fact that American citizens want to make their message clear about white oppression and black discrimination, they do not have to take this hatred and anger to another level where people start looting recovering businesses and retail stores. These businesses already suffered a major economic roadblock, so looting these stores hurts not only the businesses themselves, but also the reputation and general assumptions of American people, white or black. These lootings make the situation worse, as more police are needed to protect these businesses and business owners would eventually go bankrupt. I definitely support the peaceful protests throughout large American cities, but throwing items at policemen(who try their best to minimize the potential violence in these protests) and breaking down restaurants and retail stores is taking the message of eradicating racism way too far.