George Floyd's murder and my take on white supremacy

On 25 May 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American, was arrested for buying cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill in Minneapolis. About ten minutes after the employee reported the illegal transaction, two police officers found George Floyd with two friends in a car close to the grocery store. After having been targeted with a gun and having been handcuffed, George Floyd resisted entering the police car. This is when Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer, arrived at the scene and in his attempt to put him inside the car, he caused Floyd to fall on the ground. Then, Chauvin placed his knee on Floyd's neck and kept it there for about nine minutes although bystanders were filming him and Floyd himself was stating that he couldn't breath. At some point, Floyd lost consciousness and after he was transported to a hospital, he was announced dead. All four police officers present during this incident were fired but Derek Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

I have been procrastinating to write this post because I am a white person and I know that I'm privileged and lucky not to have to face prejudices and injustices just because my complexion is as light as the majority of the people living in my country. However, racism is everywhere and it is everyone's responsibility to criticise this hurtful phenomenon and pledge to the fight to obliterate it. So, I didn't want to stay silent any longer and I am here to publicly state my support to the Black Lives Matter movement and to the fight for true equality so that no one else loses his or her life so unfairly as George Floyd and so many others before him did. 

Black people have every right to protest and demand the equality they deserve, and which, for the record, they officially obtained after the abolition of slavery in 18 December 1865. I am not going to discuss the derogative institution of slavery as we would have to also talk about the time it was enforced. What blows my mind, however, is that before entering university and starting to educate myself on American history, I truly thought that everybody were equal there because I knew two things about America; Firstly, the people who were first called Americans originated from different places around the world, and secondly, wherever you are from, you can go to America, find a job, work hard, and make it in life. These two pieces of information made me infer that anyone can live the American Dream as long as they respected and cared for that country. But I was wrong. 

White supremacy lies at the core of American (and European, for sure) history and culture from the first settlement in 1492 with all the attacks against Native Americans and their confinement in reservations to today when a black person is more likely to be killed by a police officer than a white one. The only reason I can think of why some white people adopt racist mindsets is because they feel better for themselves when they associate their whiteness with power, intellect and beauty, which is what people did arbitrarily decades ago. However, that is an illusory and obtuse way of thinking; all people on this earth are equal. The colour of our skin says nothing about our intellect, our capabilities or our self-value (and that is scientifically proven). I can only imagine how totally unfair and stifling it must feel to live in a society where you are unsafe and degraded by those around you, who are supposed to be your fellow members in a united community. And because I desire the world, where I and the generations to come will live, to be a truly humane and democratic place, I'm here to state that I support the fight for equality wholeheartedly. 

The first thing that I and many other white people do -although I admit that we should have done it much sooner- is to acknowledge the problem and listen to what the victims of racism have to say. Learning about black history and listening to their contemporary everyday struggles are ways to understand the consequences of racism and consciously stop embracing any racist attitude or habit that we may have adopted. It goes without saying that developing an anti-racist mindset means that we treat all minorities equally, not just black people but all people, and not just now, but forever. 

Sources:

George Floyd: What happened in the final moments of his life by BBC News

Bail Is at Least $1 Million for Ex-Officer Accused of Killing George Floyd by New York Times

Slavery abolished in America with adoption of 13th amendment

What the data say about police brutality and racial bias — and which reforms might work by Nature

The unwelcome revival of ‘race science’ by The Guardian

Black Lives Matter