We need to wonder if we would even know about George Floyd without phone videos. The incidents should make us all wonder how many more like George Floyd there are that did not get the opportunity to become martyred hashtags. Most Black people will tell you that many more unnamed martyrs than named ones. Thus, it can be acceptable to say that racism is not getting worse; instead, it is getting filmed.
Often, we should notice that cops frequently stop black people. They have been stopped while driving cars, sitting in parked cars, riding on buses and trains, walking, running, studying, eating, and clubbing. They have been cussed out, thrown up against concrete walls, and detained by police. In fact, many of them did not have any criminal record before. However, many have been from military backgrounds, but it should not even be said that these things matter much because they do not seem to.
Several incidents following violence made the Black people understand and realize that the continuum of police violence often ends with murder (Perry and Black, 2020). To fundamentally solve police brutality, we need to replant the roots of rotten trees within law enforcement. The United States should be honest that law enforcement originated from slave patrols meant to capture those who aimed to flee from enslavement to deal with rotten roots. Unfortunately, America has not fully dealt with it. It is highly needed to deal with officers’ above-the-law sort of mentality (Busette, 2020). The fact that fear is used as an excuse to enact force.
Therefore, there needs to be restructuring for police misconduct. The structuring will more likely be helpful for police chiefs to scrutinize bad apples better and justify their removal. Moreover, the malpractitioners in the law enforcement department must not be permitted to proliferate and spread to other trees. Being expelled sends a clear message about accountability, reflecting that this should be commonplace in a country that should treat every human life like it is precious and matters. Furthermore, it should also be assured that they cannot work in law enforcement the next time.
The historical attitudes surface in research showing the disproportionate number of stops, arrests, and convections that Black Americans undergo and every extrajudicial killing such as Floyd’s. Few incidents signal that people are not wanted in a local economy, like police officers killing them. Black lives must matter everywhere. But George Floyd’s death represents not just a failure of policing, but a failure of economic policy, a failure to close wealth gaps, and a failure to value Black lives.
References
Busette, C. (2020). Mayors and governors: This is how you tackle racism. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2020/06/02/mayor-and-governors-this-is-how-you-tackle-racism/
Perry, A. M., and Black, T. (2020). George Floyd’s death demonstrates the policy violence that devalues Black lives. Brookings. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/05/28/george-floyds-death-demonstrates-the-policy-violence-that-devalues-black-lives/