Death of George Floyd and the American inequalities

While the United States and the rest of the world have been struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic, with more than 100,00 deaths and about 1.8 million positive cases in the US, massive protests have erupted and are continuing in several US cities, as the whole country saw the video of the last moments of George Floyd’s life. How the very people who were supposed to protect the citizens of Minneapolis, let him die.

George Floyd, who was 46 years old, was reported to have purchased cigarettes with counterfeit dollar bills on the 25^th May. As per the widely seen video, police officer Derek Chauvin was kneeling on the neck of Floyd for several minutes, despite him repeatedly pleading that he could not breathe.

The following day, the four officers involved were fired. Meanwhile as the video is widely shared on social media, protests erupted and hundreds of demonstrators were on the streets of Minneapolis. Police cars were vandalized, and on the 27^th May, the police station where the officers involved were based was set on fire. Soon, protests spread to many other cities.

On the 28^th May, President Trump tweets “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”, and this tweet is hidden by twitter for ‘glorifying violence’.

As per media reports from Reuters, and BBC there were more than 75 cities with protests and wide spread violence in some places. With at least 4,400 people arrested by 31^st May, I saw vides on Facebook and CNN, where several department stores were vandalized and looted by hundreds of demonstrators.

While the most demonstrations were peaceful, the level of outrage that we saw in some videos makes one wonder about the impending problems and frustrations in the country. While the United States has been trying to enforce democracy, human rights, and equal opportunity in other countries; its own backyard is with huge socio-economic inequality, and systemic racial discrimination. The US economy has had a prolonged period of stark income and wealth disparity for the past two decades. It may mean that the country can no longer ignore the widening economic and political inequalities; especially the worsening gap between the African Americans and the rest.

As per Census Bureau data reported by Economist, the average black household income in 2018 was at $41,400 while for whites it was $70,600. One thing that the present COVID catastrophe has shown us; is the relative vulnerabilities of the African-American families and individuals; as they have been the hardest hit.

According to Joe Stiglitz, the top 1 percent controls 40 percent of the US wealth. The hard truth is, just like most of the developing and poor countries of the world, the top 1 percent control the politics, and all major economic decision making in the country, which is most of the time in favor of the 1 percent, and making those at the bottom poorer.