I can not breathe.
The last words of George Floyd, 46, went around the world. The African-American man died on Monday, suffocated by the knee of a police officer who tackled him to the ground during his arrest in northern Minneapolis. The filmed sequence recalls the death of another black man in 2014 in New York. Eric Garner had uttered the same sentence. The #BlackLivesMatter (# LaviedesBlackscount
) was born soon after.
Today, after Los Angeles in 1992, Cincinnati in 2001 or even Ferguson in 2015, Minneapolis is burning. Demonstrations and looting are escalating every night. Protesters demand the arrest of the four responsible police officers. They were sacked, but were still free Friday morning. During the night, a police station had been burned down. The governor mobilized the National Guard. Other cities, from New York to Denver and Louisville, have joined the movement.
“Institutional racism”
Alex Vitale, sociologist at Brooklyn College, explains this anger by adeep frustration over total lack of improvement in the way the US police do their job, despite five years of protests
” The academic notes the lack of progress despite the wearing of cameras on the uniform and the organization of training on racist prejudice. On Friday, at least two teams of journalists from ? CNN were in Minneapolis. One was arrested. Its presenter was black.
Police violence is the sixth leading cause of death for young African-Americans, according to the University of Michigan. Black men are 2.5 times more likely to be arrested than white men. The United States have a very long history of hierarchy, segregation and discrimination
said Pamela Oliver, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of Wisconsin. She denounces the institutional racism
, that is to say organizing the police to deal with the consequences of racial discrimination
.
Five months before the presidential election, thehe subject enters the campaign. Looting will be immediately greeted by bullets
, tweeted Donald Trump. The social network pinned this message, saying it glorified violence ”.
Democratic candidate Joe Biden was outraged by this call to violence against American citizens. “
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