Washington.— Eight minutes and forty-six seconds was enough to wake up the United States. The knee of a white cop on a black collar, the disdain for a stifling plea and a few last breaths of life crying out for maternal protection. The last eight minutes and forty-six seconds of George Floyd’s life circulated around the world, videotaped and embedded directly in the retina of all Americans, becoming the resurrection of a movement for racial equality that still doesn’t exist in the US.
While the country was economically depressed, victim of the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, the flame of a fire that was to come was lit in late May. Floyd’s death, after being arrested in Minneapolis for attempting to pay with a false bill, sparked the largest wave of racial equality protests since 1968, which arose in response to the murder of Martin Luther King.
Floyd’s choking on the tarmac under the yoke of Officer Derek Chauvin was too metaphorical a picture of the country’s racist reality. The streets were filled with people, in a unique collective catharsis much older than the one five years ago with the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement. They raised the same demands for racial justice, an end to police violence, especially against minorities.
Violence from the lawsuits raged as more and more cases of abuse surfaced. Breonna Taylor was shot in her home after police officers accidentally raided her home. Ahmaud Arbery was shot by white men who suspected the young man who played sports alone on the street and mistook him for a criminal. Months later, Jacob Blake was paralyzed by the shots of a police officer as he tried to drive away in his car, ignoring a police officer who pulled his shirt.
The need to repeat the names of all victims was more than necessary. The noise from the streets, completely untenable after years of recovery, required gestures. A rebirth of the racial justice movement that partially resisted its pull and gained traction as it almost became a moment of revelation for many whites, who seemed to have been aroused by television horror, making the anger greater and more profound than the symbols they were over ever needed, as if empathy suddenly awoke.
Or perhaps the moment of truth in a totally polarized country, in a context where the president forced the security forces to condemn protesters to take a photo in front of a church near the White House; a president who never showed sympathy for the victims or pushed for systematic change, denying that there is racism in the United States; a president, already in the latter part of the election campaign for re-election, made not the slightest gesture to rid himself of his xenophobic image and asked neo-fascist groups to be “on the alert”.
The United States entered an unprecedented phase of revisionism and memory. Statues dedicated to Confederate leaders fell and Mississippi changed flags that still had associated symbols; sports teams and food brands suppressed racialized images and logos; The juneteenth was celebrated and many states made it an official holiday; the literature of James Baldwin and so many other black writers was rediscovered; Essay books on race, anti-racism, and white privilege dominated the bestseller lists week after week; Companies were forced to recognize the slave past of their founders and to work to improve the “diversity” of their governing bodies.
Sports leagues stopped to demand political answers. The square in front of the White House was renamed “Black Lives Matter Plaza”, with a mural on the ground bearing that motto. Joe Biden, then running for president of the country, chose Kamala Harris as his electoral companion, the first African American to aspire to a position she will finally hold starting January 20.
The most massive demonstrations in half a century demanded recognition of the names of all those killed by systemic racism (say their names! They shouted), in an exercise of remembrance and justification. Violent clashes and riots multiplied and were reborn when, as always, there were not enough criminal penalties for the aggressors.
Just like in 2014, the media phenomenon Black Lives Matter is fading. The presence of neo-fascist and white supremacist groups in Washington to ‘defend’ President Trump against the electoral ‘theft’ ended with clashes with anti-racist activists and the attack on African American churches, removing banners in favor of the racial justice movement as they waved flags. from the police.
And meanwhile, systemic racism continues. All demographic and economic figures and figures remain unfavorable for racial minorities; The arrival of the coronavirus is another example, with much higher mortality in these communities than in whites, not because of a genetic problem, but because of a social fabric that makes them more vulnerable.
“We cannot increase racial equality without eradicating white supremacy; we cannot solve the anti-black and anti-brown racism that underlies policies and decisions that drive hiring, mortgages, transportation networks, Wi-Fi access, education and wealth accumulation, ”the columnist recently wrote. Michele Norris, in the Washington Post, complains about the refusal of much of the population to accept that there is “white privilege” in American society, where the value of a white life is greater than that of a black life.
“[Se] It requires a full reboot and a commitment to letting go of the things that people cling to, consciously or unconsciously, because a life with benefits has its benefits, ”he claimed to his white peers.
The mood that something could happen at the root is negligible. Confidence in change is low, and the country is divided on that point too. A Pew Research poll in October found that 48% believed major changes would take place in the country, but more than half (51%) believed there would be no major change. 46% said the lives of African Americans will not improve after the protests and revival of the Black Lives Matter movement.
All this despite the fact that half of the population admits that the country has not done enough to ensure that blacks have the same rights as whites in the country. The increase in that belief is only 4 points compared to a year ago (from 45% to 49%).
Former activist and basketball star Kareem Abdul Jabbar wrote after the resurgence of protests that “racism in America is like dust in the air: it seems invisible, even if you choke on it, until you let the sun in. Then you see it everywhere.” of Floyd, Taylor, Arbery, Blake and so many others have shown for the umpteenth time that racism is clearly still present in society; Another very different thing is that the country is going to do something to remove that dust and set the country free. let racism go beyond symbols and gestures without profound changes.