Wayne Reid
The murder of George Floyd is the latest in a long line of atrocities and brutalities endured by the global Black community. This has a long history. Longer than is sometimes convenient for honest acknowledgement. I notice some commentators are referring to George’s ‘death’, which is a dilution of what occurred. George was brutally murdered by a Police Officer and the world has seen the evidence.
The context to George’s murder is emotive and cumulative: the Amy Cooper ‘race grenade’; endless examples of police brutality cases in the US and UK; modern-day systems of oppression and the historic and ongoing the suppression of the effects of slavery and colonialism in mainstream education. These factors can accumulate and create an acute sense of anger and rage. These emotions can manifest into civil disorder and criminality. It has been evidenced that anarchic extremists are infiltrating protests to covertly fuel acts of looting and violence, which is then reported by the media in such ways to discredit the protesters. This detracts from the causal factors that have triggered the protests – and if we want to discuss looting, how about the longstanding looting of Africa’s natural resources?
