Black Lives Matter

Incident 

A 46-year-old man was killed by American police on May 25,2020, his fault being that he was under the suspicion of using a counterfeit bill and that he was black. The man named George Floyd, died in Minneapolis, Minnesota after white police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck while he(Floyd) was handcuffed and lying face down on the street. Three of the four officers present there restrained Floyd while the fourth one prevented onlookers from intervening. Floyd repeatedly begged the police officer to remove his knee as he was unable to breath, but the officer showed no mercy and gagged him for 9 minutes when finally Floyd lost his pulse and died. The incident took place on a public street and the people around the scene too pleaded the officer to lift off his knee but none of the officers listened to them. Many individuals in the public shot the video of the incident which later went viral. Police initially claimed that Floyd had resisted arrest, but after security camera footage and videos made by witnesses circulated widely, all four officers were fired.  

Reaction of the citizens

The incident led to many nationwide or rather worldwide protests demanding for equality and justice for the black people. The place where George was killed turned into a memorial on May 26th, with people gathering in hundreds of number to pay their tribute and to peacefully protest. But the peace did not remain for long and the protest turned violent which the police had to later curb. Floyd's death led to demonstrations and protests across about 75 cities in United States against police brutality and racism. Protests turned violent in cities like New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Minneapolis where a police precinct and two stores were burnt. Protests also took place in countries like Australia, United Kingdom and Canada.

Is American police racist?

 Although there have been few similar events in the past,few incidents cannot define the actual nature of american police,. The best way to judge is to look at some facts.

1. Population of United States- Population of United States is about 321,004,407(by 2017) out of which 73% are white people while only 13% are black. The remaining 14.3% constitute the Asians, American indians and other races.

2. Ratio of black inmates to white- The black people account for about 38% of the prisoners while the white are about 58.2%. 

3. Wrong convictions- According to The National Registry of Exonerations black people are 7 times more likely to be wrongly accused of murder, 3.5 times more likely to be wrongfully accused of sexual assault and 12 times more likely to be wrongfully accused of drug possession as compared to the white people.

            

      4. Death due to police violence- According to a report of 2019, black people are 2.5 times more likely to be killed by police as compared to the white people and are 1.5 times more likely to be unarmed before their deaths.

Conclusion

With the above statistics it is clear that American police is biased when it comes to race. While looking at the percentage of black inmates to the white one might say that both the races are equally treated by the police but when one compares the ratio of the inmates to the total population of the country the difference becomes clear. When individually asked, more than 50% of the police officers in a survey agreed that they initially get a hunch that a black guy must have been involved in a certain crime that comes up.

Reason for discrimination- The reason for this discrimination against black people is basically american history. It was in 1960 that the black people got equal rights as the white, but before that they had been treated as slaves for hundred of years. This mentality of black being an inferior race is something that white Americans have got from their ancestors, but in today's modern and justifiable world they must realise that they need to give up such thinking and must strive towards equality for all, giving equal rights and justice to every individual.
This is not just for the white people, any of the race,religion,group or sect that believes it is superior to the other is completely wrong. In today's world where equality is demanded, if a person has potential and appropriate resources he can achieve anything in this world. A person is respected not because of his gender,race or religion but because of the qualities and manners that he/she possesses, therefore the emphasis should not be on superiority but individuality. People must enhance themselves for betterment of themselves and thus humanity and the world.