I cant breathe

 

The days just slip by. Like a dream, or a nightmare, depending on who you are asking, and who is experiencing it.

It is almost six months into the year, a year that has to date been marked by and irrevocably changed by the pandemic that was first detected over two hundred days ago, and spread all over the world. Now, close to 7 million (official) infections and 400,000 (counted) deaths later, the world is still reeling from this all, trying to make sense of it all. What is clear is there will be an independent investigation into the response of the coronavirus, even though in recent days it has been made clear through leaked documents that the WHO, or at least leadership at the world body, colluded with China to hide or deliberately delay alerting the world.

The world is burning... tensions between China and the United States, which is led by an megamaniac and tyrant, is boiling over. the people of Hong Kong are facing a newly introduced security law aimed at cracking down on "any" act of secession, subversion, terrorism or activities by foreign foreces. Today, 31 years ago, was the watershed moment that seems to have led to nothing on Tiananmen. Only the people of Hong Kong, defying a pretext/ban on gathering due to coronavirus, and a handful of those who care and remember, will be remembering...

And in the midst of it all, racial tensions have again been thrust into the front pages after a black man was brutally killed by a policeman in Minneapolis, who knelt on top of the handcuffed man for almost 9 minutes till he suffocated and died.

"I can't breathe..."

Those were the haunting last words of George Floyd, a 46 year old man accused of using a fake $20 bill at a store, and was later pinned to the ground and killed by police. Race riots and demonstrations spread across the US, fueled by the angry tweets by the president and opportunists seizing the occassion to plunder and loot. To top it off, China, with its  glaring human rights record and respect for blacks, is using the opportunity to once again underline the failings of liberal democracies.

If anything, this shows that beneath the surface, race still matters, and that blacks and people of colour are still being treated unfairly. It shows that race matters, and that the system is predisposed to judge and be biased against (particularly) black people.

This horrendous killing, by the very force entrusted with the powers to serve and protect civilians, comes just days after a white "Karen" called the police on a black man  and falsely accused her for threatening her and her unleashed dog, when the man told her simply to leash her dog in a protected area of Central Park. His only "crime"? Telling off a girl who knows how to use her privilege and trigger words to call the police.  


For days and weeks to come, corporations and facebook/social media pages will change their profiles to show solidarity. But will things change as memories of those haunting images and the harrowing sound of those words "I can't breathe" fade?