PWhy is the wave of protests affecting the United States after the death of this black citizen in Minneapolis so resounding?
Francois Durpaire : “It comes from the emotion felt by the people who saw the video, which was widely distributed beyond the city and the United States. This is not the first time and there is often this cycle of demonstrations, of revolts after such acts. It is a very old cycle that has been known since the 1950s and 1960s. If we want to engage in a sad game of resemblance and difference, we can say that 90% of the facts are similar to what has already happened in the past. What is different is that it is no longer a question of a riot, but of an act of revolution. From the “traditional” window breakage, we went to the police station fire! For the black community of Minnesota, this is equivalent to the capture of a Bastille. There is also the power of media and social networks. The fact of filming police interventions is not new in itself, since the black panthers (1) were already doing it. It was one of their methodology of action. Except that today there are potentially more than 300 million eyewitnesses, thanks to the cell phone. And the Americans concerned have the immediate reaction to film and broadcast. Many consider it more important than calling for help, to have proof of assaults committed by the police. The other difference is that there is Donald Trump at the head of the country and his interventions on Twitter. “
About the Minneapolis affair, one of the presidential tweets was rightly pointed out as an “apology for violence” …
” Absolutely. He wrote: “When the looting starts, the shooting begins.” It’s a way of saying that he can bring in the National Guard, with fire orders. We also know that the president made ambiguous remarks about white supremacists. On the big differences with the past, there is an aspect of lack of leadership. In the Sixties, one could quote on one side the Kennedys or Johnson and on the other Martin Luther King. Today, it is difficult to imagine Donald Trump sitting around a table to discuss the problem of police blunders against a black community that today does not have a great leader.
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“Even a black president failed to make a difference”
African Americans also find it difficult to turn to the Democratic Party where Joe Biden himself was accused of racial prejudice a few days ago when he told a black voter that he “couldn’t be black”. ‘he was voting for Trump ”. Despite everything, the black community will still vote mostly for Biden. But we can say that there is a pessimism, a lassitude of the black community, with in addition a very wide denial of racism which ends up posing the problem of the reaction of the justice. “
The Democratic Governor of Minnesota calls for substantive justice reforms. It’s new ?
“Yes and it is a stone in the garden of Donald Trump who himself criticized the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis. There is a political polarization around this affair. But this powerful and strong trauma is transmitted from generation to generation among blacks, outside of politics. “
Will this impact the election campaign, or not at all?
” It’s very difficult to say. In relation to these types of events, many Americans feel that an election campaign is less important than the history of the country and the way it operates. The events in Minneapolis have more to do with the mentality of the country than with the campaign for the presidential election. When I evoke the pessimism of the black activist, I necessarily think of the election of Barack Obama. Realize! Even a colored president failed to make a difference! Every black citizen wonders what will one day change this situation. Martin Luther King said that this racism problem is that of the average white American. And it is true that this American is less concerned and feels less this anger. Above all, he is not afraid! On the contrary, black Americans, women, adolescents are afraid of the police and constantly wonder what can happen to them. The victim of the Minneapolis police officers is a caretaker, father, who has never had a problem. One wonders what the police were accusing him of. We must therefore focus more on a change of mentality than on a political change. “
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(1) The Black Panther Party is a revolutionary African-American liberation movement formed in California in 1966, dissolved in 1982.
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