Two very recent incidents in very different areas of America have underscored the brutal reality that racism is still very much alive and well in the United States today.
The first and most serious occurred in Minnesota. There, four police officers have been fired after a video showed several police officers effectively brutalizing George Floyd, a black man whom they had just arrested. This includes the damning image of one police officer, who had just placed Floyd under arrest and had him lying on the ground face down, literally kneeling with his knee on the man’s neck. Floyd later died.
The video also reveals an argument against the police officers by bystanders, who were warning that the man could not breathe and had passed out. They urged the police officers to check for his pulse. Eventually, someone did, although with seemingly no alarm or sense of urgency, but rather casually.
Later, there was a wave of outrage and protest once the video became public. The four officers were fired, but there were mass protests yesterday, in the aftermath of the image.
One similar incident that many now seem to be comparing this to, likely because of the similarities, was the death of Eric Garner. Garner, as most people probably remember, was a black man who was essentially assaulted by police. One of them held him tightly from behind around his neck, effectively choking him. Garner, like Floyd, could be heard telling the police officers that he could not breathe, yet they did not let up, much like the Minnesota officers did not ever let up with Floyd, even though Floyd actually told them repeated – even more than Garner – that he could not breathe.
A number of people online are demanding for the police officers themselves to be placed under arrest, and then tried for murder. In fact, Mr. Floyd’s family members were on CNN on Tuesday night, and suggested that the officers should be charged with murder.
“They treated him worse than they treat animals,” said Philonise Floyd, Mr. Floyd’s brother. “They took a life — they deserve life.”
Some have pointed that how these kinds of incidents continually happening would clearly suggest institutional racism is the reality in America.
Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis said:
“It’s the kind of thing where you don’t hide from the truth, you lean into it, because our city is going to be better off for it, no matter how ugly, awful it is,. If it points out the institutional racism that we are still working through right now, well, good — it means that we’ve got a lot of work to go.”
He responded quickly and condemned the incident, saying in a video released that “Being black in America should not be a death sentence.”
There was a backlash among many national figures, as well. That included Representative lhan Omar from Minnesota, who wrote a letter on Tuesday asking the U.S. attorney for Minnesota and the Hennepin County attorney to investigate the officers’ actions. She also added on Twitter:
“Police brutality must end. We must pursue justice and get answers to this unjust killing.”
Former Vice President Joseph Biden, who is also the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, spoke out in the issue via Twitter. Here is what he said:
“George Floyd deserved better and his family deserves justice. His life mattered.”
Indeed, the outrage following this fatal incident has, once again, put excessive use of force by police officers back under the microscope. It also follows an incident in Georgia where a black man was shot to death by a couple of white men who were suspicious of him, even though those men were not police officers. Still, those men went free for some time, until video of that particular incident also sparked outrage. Now, finally, those men are being charged with a crime, even though nothing had changed, other than the release of that video to the public.
Racist incidents like this seem to be occurring in recent years with alarming regularity. They are not always fatal, like this story from Minnesota wound up being. One of those non-lethal incidents happened in recent days as well.
The second incident occurred in New York City, which many people believed to be just about the most liberal city in the world. Yet, racial incidents are not uncommon there, and this latest one has also sparked outrage. It took place in Central Park, specifically.
There, a white woman named Amy Cooper was told by a black man named Christian Cooper – a birdwatcher – to put a leash on her dog. She refused, and the situation escalated in a hurry from there. Before long, the woman began to warn that she would place a call to police, and to tell them that she felt threatened by an “African American man”. As she is on the phone with them, her tone grows more and more frantic, as if she actually feels threatened, even though the video taken by Mr. Cooper show evidence to the contrary. He, in fact, does not move any closer to her, and remains calm throughout.
The woman is now being referred to as “Central Park Karen”, going with the online trend of “Karen” being a euphemism for frankly bitchy white women living sheltered lives and with a false sense of entitlement, more often complaining and exaggerating things, and being generally very close-minded. While admittedly, I know nothing about this woman in particular, the label seems justified in this case, based on how she reacted. After all, she had her dog running free, not on a leash, and she got mad when someone requested for her to put a leash on the dog. It escalated, most likely because of her, even though she claims that Mr. Cooper was screaming at her. But she also lied to the police about being threatened by an African-American man, sounding increasingly hysterical while just trying to maintain control of her dog.
She said that she was sorry later, after the video was released, and stated that she was wrong. Yet, she still hung onto some kind of a defense, claiming that the man had been screaming at her earlier (before there is any video). So, by qualifying her apology, it feels like it basically negates it.
There are reports that she was fired from her job. And indeed, I believe she is rightly being referred to as a “Karen” following this incident.
Speaking of which, I should mention that while I am not entirely certain why Karen became synonymous with the consummate female “Ugly American”, and kind of feel that it is unfair. After all, there are plenty of women out there named Karen, and they are not all bad. I have known some Karens myself, and they were not especially bad people, or anything. The first time that I personally saw these memes or Facebook posts was probably a few years ago, and it was just a regular housecat scared of what appears to be a mountain lion. The cat is supposed to be asking Karen where her damn water bottle is now. Little by little, there were more such internet sensations that included the name Karen. It seems that it was earlier this year that it suddenly took on a life fully of it’s own, and became synonymous with the stereotype of the figuratively ugly and spoiled white woman.
Here are the links to the two articles I used in writing this particular blog entry about these two separate incidents that nonetheless both clearly point to the fact that racism is still a very prominent problem in the United States today, two decades into the 21st century:
‘I Can’t Breathe’: 4 Minneapolis Officers Fired After Black Man Dies in Custody by Christine Hauser, Derrick Bryson Taylor and Neil Vigdor, with Alan Yuhas contributing in this reporting, May 26, 2020:
Central Park Confrontation Goes Viral, as White Woman Calls Cops on Black Man Over Dog Leash by Brian Price, Checkey Beckford and Kiki Intarasuwan • Published May 25, 2020:
A viral video shows a white woman calling police on a black man and frantically claiming he was threatening her after a disagreement over leashing her dog
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