Choked long enough: Racism
Race has always been a difficult word.
Not that the four lettered spelling is rather complicated but more so that the history surrounding it has been marred by great misfortune. The apartheid that stemmed in the heart of South Africa, the slave trade and the subsequent degeneration, black people have been constantly marginalised and mistreated at the hands of whites.
The discussion regarding race has always been a prickly one, as not many of the people (not all, but certainly not many), whose ancestors could have participated in such heinous acts, are proud of that fact. Many have often tried to make up for these past horrors by recognising the privilege that their skin so politely offers them and using it to help those that aren't so lucky- namely people of colour.
Britain abolished slavery in 1833, the US in 1865, yet hundreds of years on we still see that deep rooted idea of white superiority shine through.
The most recent case of which was put into the spotlight when on May 25th Derek Chauvin, a (now ex-) policeman in Minneapolis, put George Floyd in a chokehold that ended up taking his life. He was called their, along with three other officers all of which have been fired and charged with abating murder, at the complaint of a shopkeeper who accused Floyd of attempting to pay with a counterfeit 20 dollar bill. Once at the scene, outside the shop, the officer in accusation dragged Floyd out his vehicle and placed his knee on his neck for just over 8 minutes, the last 2 of which, Floyd was unresponsive.
Despite the police accusations of resistance of arrest by Mr. George, which have been disputed by footage obtained outside the shop, it is very clear that the use of force was unnecessary and overbearing, nothing but a clear abuse of power. Something the courts agreed with, as Chauvin has now been charged with manslaughter and second degree murder. The death penalty is illegal in 22 states in the US and only 58 countries retain it worldwide, yet it seems to have been applied to the case of Mr. Floyd by nothing other than the judgement of a white officer and for no crime other than being black.
'I can't breathe.'
Those were the words that George spoke in his last moments, and those are the words that thousands of posters read, that so many protesters shout. Protests have surpassed borders and race as people of all colours show up, despite the risk to their health by the ongoing virus, in countries like the UK, Canada, Australia and most obviously the US, where over 10,000 of them have already been arrested.
Racism, while often bearing the brunt on black people, has been acknowledged against all people of colour, specifically the indigenous population in both Australia and even Canada, where an indigenous chief was recently battered during arrest. It made the Canadian authorities take back statements of not being 'sure' if systematic racism was a problem their country faced, clearly it is 'part of every institution,' the RCMP commissioner said.
While the US certainly has history tainted red by blood belonging to people of colour, the UK doesn't get any leeway on this issue either. British students, in fact all students around the world, are familiar with it's imperialism entrapped in the pages of history books. It's no surprised that the freedom from Britain is celebrated somewhere in the world, on average, once in every seven days.
And it doesn't take any history lessons, only a sense of realism, to recognise that there was much violence and slave trade that shadowed those 'glory years' of Great Britain. 'Whatever happens, we have got, The maxim (gun), and they have not,' as Hilaire Belloc so politely put it.
The brunt of this brutality was felt by those that held more melanin in their skin, quite obviously. Something that was acknowledged by the thousands of protesters taking the street in the UK. They took to slight American tactics and threw the statue of Edward Colston, who was deeply involved in the Atlantic slave trade, into the harbour in Bristol. This was just the start of confrontation with a colonial past, with many other statues associated with slavery to be removed (through methods more boring than the revival of Boston tea party tactics ie. paperwork) and the statue of Churchill in parliament square was vandalised with 'was a racist' sprayed in black, under his name.
The former move has been widely accepted as unconventional but not unwarranted, while the latter has been met with more disapproval, for Churchill, whose bust even sits in the white house, is a renowned WW2 hero. In the defence of the vandalizers, however, Churchill has been known for his inaction during the bengal famine (despite parliamentary pleadings) which killed 3 million, and was proven to have been man made due to actions of the British East Indian Company. Instead he blamed it on Indians breeding 'like rabbits' and even called them 'beastly'. Not only that but his views on white supremacy were known to even surpass that of his colleagues (who were rather alarmed), his involvement in establishing the apartheid can't be overlooked either, because no matter his fight against the Nazis, he truly did believe the white man was better.
Nevertheless, it must be noted that the Colston uprooters were mainly all white, raising questions if they would have been treated just a leniently has they been people of colour. It also adds to worries that this public revolt for abolishing racism could be hijacked by white anarchists, or even people of colour simply looking for chaos. Because the kind of violence and looting displayed in protests in the US and this key flouting of laws in the UK, along with injuries to police officers trying to maintain curfews and virus related lockdowns, can end up jeopardizing the cause for which many came out in the first place.
No change comes easy, and it only takes a quick google search to find heinous videos of police use of force in these very protests, but it would do all those that take the streets to be wary. It's important that the fight be fought, yet the opposition only needs an excuse to escalate. The worst part is that, unlike many protestors, often not the first to fire, they'll probably get away with it.