Skip to main content

Racial Injustice 2020



In the year 2020, a sensitive set of events occurred that shook nations, touched the hearts of many, and inspired a lot of hate. On May 25, an African-American man by the name of George Floyd died in Minnesota, USA as a Caucasian police officer pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck for almost nine minutes. Protests broke out in hundreds of cities across the United States. Riots followed causing the looting of many businesses and the burning of police stations. People were enraged. Society was divided; many felt that there was too much emphasis being placed on the death of George Floyd.



George Floyd has been the only news talked about at length in almost all news channels, across all news networks impacting thousands of lives in the span of a few days. Demonstrators in Germany, UK, Canada, and other countries have marched through streets and gathered at embassies.


Racism is not a thing of the past. It is present in society today. A study came to light in 2018, with the number of victims of race-based violence at 2,426 for African-Americans alone. The U.S. has numerous incidents of racial injustice and hate crimes that continue to go unaddressed and even forgotten by many citizens. Those who share this view feel that the death of George Floyd is a symbol to show racial hate in America. Some believe that a reason for his death to have been so huge is because George Floyd was a popular activist and was known by some celebrities as well. There have been many other deaths resulting from racial injustice, yet news of those deaths are drowned in the media and forgotten. What about Ahmaud Arbery who died in February or Breonna Taylor who was shot eight times in her sleep days before the death of George Floyd?


The Black Lives Matter movement seems to have been centered on George Floyd alone. Across the world, riots and protests sparked in his name. Action in the George Floyd case was finally taken and four arrests were made. But what about the seven other African-Americans that died in the same month? Where is their justice?


While the death of George Floyd certainly is a heart-breaking incident, it shouldn’t overshadow the plight of many others who face racism in their day-to-day lives. George Floyd was not the only one who died of racial injustice. Thousands did.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Islam: Religion and Followers

At the SPEAKout@ROM, August 6, 2010, Ahmed Al Ahmady presented a poem relating to the stereotypes of Muslims and the real meaning of Islam. He supported that religion is actually based on peace. He also reminds us that the media coverage on Muslims is not always accurate, and usually biased against them. The media has shown Muslims as terrorists and the public agrees without raising questions. There do exist many different groups of Muslims all over the world and each group has its own belief. They are not all bad. He says that after 9/11, even the Muslims are afraid and there has been a rise in hate crimes. He also suggests that instead of being divided, the Muslim community should come forward and say something especially when they know matters related to the terrorist activities. "Because if you look the other way, you're better off blind.". According to him, the Muslim community should have unity and feel secure just like the rest of humanity instead of being marked a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Philosophizing The Big Question

Life. What is it? That is a philosophical question. It’s probably the oldest question in history. But does it have an answer? Of course it does. It’s been, what, a thousand years of humankind? Of course someone would’ve answered it by now. And people have, they’ve answered and created careers out of it. Entire lives based on that question. There was Diogenes, a beggar kind of guy who eventually became one of the founding members of a branch in Greek philosophy. This dude existed around the time of Alexander the Great and Plato and Socrates. There’s a story about him; One day Diogenes is out in the beach just chilling when Alexander the Great approaches him and asks “I have a huge empire, it is the greatest, tell me what you want and I will bring it to you!” Diogenes replies with annoyance on his face “Get out of my sunlight.” Alexander, being a proud dude, says “if I wasn’t Alexander, I’d be Diogenes.” To this, Diogenes replies “if I wasn’t Diogenes, I’d be Diogenes”. Diog...
Post a Comment
Read more

Hello Internet

What’s up?  And the internet replied, “ Quarantine “. On January 11, 2020, China announced to the world the first death from the COVID-19 virus. Since then, a lot has happened. Jobs vanished, economies were brought to their knees, currencies dropped and beloved stars were lost to history. Hundreds died and thousands were infected. Many businesses went out of order. Yet, the human race trudged on. Almost every country on the planet locked its borders down. Issued out a curfew and enforced it with aggressive passion. The largest pandemic of the 21st century had impacted thousands of lives in every country, in every continent. People were made to stay in their homes. A single word gained more popularity than Einstein ever had. That word:  Quarantine . Musicians and artists took to the internet to reach their fans and showcase their art. Charities shot up in support of the unfortunate victims to the corona-virus. Social Media had never seen such large usage rates before....
Post a Comment
Read more