The murder of George Floyd, a 46 years old black man, in broad daylight in Minneapolis shows the shocking racism at the heart of US society.
George Floyd was pinned to the ground while a white police officer pushed his knee into his neck. It lasted seven minutes and even though George was shouting ‘I cannot breathe’ and ‘I am about to die’, a public murder proceeded.
Minneapolis has a long history of police racism against black people. In November 2015, a twenty-four-year-old African-American man named Jamar Clark and shot dead while he was on the ground.
But it is not just Minneapolis. Throughout the USA, the probability of being shot by the police as a black, unarmed person versus as a white, unarmed person was 3.49 times higher.
The US President, Donald Trump, is an open inciter of racist violence. He has denounced protestors as ‘thugs’ and then in an ominous phrase, tweeted, ‘when the looting starts, the shooting starts’. It was a phrase used by a Florida police chief who declared “war” and pledged a violent reprisal on black people in Miami Beach, Florida, in 1967.
Trump is now itching to send in the military to exact punishment on the protestors.
The police officers who murdered George Floyd will probably not be prosecuted. No charges were ever brought against Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the death of Eric Garner, on Staten Island, whose arrest was also recorded on video by a bystander.
This is the real story behind an uprising that is now underway in many parts of America.
One police station has already been abandoned and then set alight because protestors know there will never be any justice.
Socialists in Ireland give their full solidarity to the protestors who are seeking justice for the murder of George Floyd.