Once I look again on the aftermath of the George Floyd homicide 5 years in the past, I recall the weeks after the 9/11 assaults and the way New Yorkers responded.
Gone was the discord and rudeness that’s usually synonymous with the Huge Apple. As an alternative was a spirit of unity and kindness, a solidarity born out of unspeakable tragedy.
That didn’t final lengthy. Earlier than you would say Freedom Tower or Homeland Safety, New Yorkers have been again to minding their very own enterprise and combating one another over parking areas.
So, too, it’s with George Floyd. We have been promised a reckoning. What we acquired was a rewind.
“George Floyd’s murder shook the world — but shaking the world is not enough,” Marc Morial, president and CEO of the Nationwide City League, mentioned in an announcement. “Did we seize the moment to build a lasting movement, or did we squander the chance for transformative change?”
George Lloyd
George Floyd
Morial’s venerable group, as previous and necessary as any civil rights group, is behind a brand new report that examines the years since Floyd’s homicide, a examine that asks the haunting query: “Was it a movement or a moment?”
It actually began off as a motion.
Floyd, an unarmed Black man, died Might 25, 2020 on Memorial Day, when cops in Minneapolis have been arresting him for allegedly passing a counterfeit invoice at a grocery retailer.
Cellphone video confirmed one of many white cops, Derek Chauvin, urgent his knee into Floyd’s neck for greater than 9 minutes whereas the opposite officers seemed on.
On this picture from surveillance video, Minneapolis cops from left, Tou Thao, Derek Chauvin, J. Alexander Kueng, and Thomas Lane try and take George Floyd into custody in Minneapolis, Minn., on Might 25, 2020. (Courtroom TV through AP, Pool, File)
Floyd suffocated after telling his tormentors he couldn’t breathe. But it took 4 days earlier than Chauvin was lastly arrested. He was later convicted of homicide.
Within the weeks and months after the homicide, there have been protests throughout the nation, and guarantees of police reform. However as an alternative of actual change, we settled for superficial handouts.
We acquired statues of Accomplice generals eliminated.
We acquired Netflix to indicate extra Black motion pictures.
We acquired Amazon to promote extra books concerning the African American expertise.
We acquired Aunt Jemima’s portrait off the pancake field.
We acquired Uncle Ben’s image off the containers of rice.
We acquired “Gone With the Wind” off HBO.
What we didn’t get was the cops in Memphis convicted for beating Tyre Nichols to loss of life.
Among the many highlights of the City League report is how how preliminary outrage over Floyd’s loss of life sparked company pledges of greater than $66 billion for racial justice packages.
Companies, increased schooling establishments and non-profits all chipped in to fund the combat in opposition to systemic racism.
Tributes are displayed on the three-year anniversary of George Floyd’s loss of life at George Floyd Sq., Might 25, 2023, in Minneapolis. (AP Photograph/Abbie Parr)
However those self same packages, particularly within the months since President Trump returned to the White Home, have confronted growing backlash, underlined by current govt orders eliminating federal range packages.
In response to the Nationwide City League, DEI job postings declined 44% from 2022 to 2023, and main firms like Google and Meta scaled again packages supporting Black expertise.
Morial, a former mayor of New Orleans, mentioned the report is a “sobering reflection on America’s racial justice journey.”
Protesters maintain indicators as they march throughout a protest over the loss of life of George Floyd in Chicago, Might 30, 2020. (AP Photograph/Nam Y. Huh, File)
And the change from reckoning to rewind appears to have occurred in a single day. Sooner or later we’re saying that Black Lives Matter, and the subsequent day we’re combating for range, fairness and inclusion.
Translation: It’d worsen earlier than it will get higher.
”That’s the threat,” Morial mentioned, “that it’s five steps forward and eight, nine, 10 steps back.”
