We go from one controversial subject to another: this shall be some reflexion on the circumstances where the Black Lives Matter movement has appeared, as well as its reasons of being, consequences and the influence it seems to have developed over the US population's thought as a response to the problem of racism the country unfortunately has to face.

This time the analysis and exposition will be hard since I don't live in this country or belong to any of the minorities that may be affected by discrimination or any of the professions that are being attacked as a consequence. I don't want people to think I am trying to lecture anyone on a problem that is causing so much pain and impotence to innocent people from every race and position.

My exposition will be as objective and neutral as possible, always based on the data and news I research from some serious sources. If anyone thinks my opinion will be bland because of what I already explained, that view is as acceptable as any other that parts from a respectful dialogue. For now, this is what I have to say on the subject.

By the time I write these lines everyone from any country shall be aware of the death of George Floyd at the hands of a policeman in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the details of the tragedy, and the movement it has been born out of the enfuriated US society.

With your permission, this time I will divide the information in different parts, starting with the circumstances and facts that surrounded the act that started it all.

1. Who was George Floyd?

George Perry Floyd Jr was an Afro-American US citizen who was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina and was raised in a poor neighborhood named Bricks, in Houston, Texas. He stood out as a football and basketball player in his last years of high school, which earned him a university scholarship at the A&M University of Texas he would leave two years later. Herbert Mouton, who used to play with Floyd in the same team, described him as a tall guy who was always laughing and making jokes, and couldn't remember a time where he was involved in a fight.

After those two years as a college student, he returned to Texas and spent around a decade of arrests and incarcerations for crimes mainly related with drugs. This period included a ten months penalty in a state prison because of a 10 dollars drug transaction in 2004 and, 4 years later, other four years in prison after he declared himself guilty of an armed robbery crime. Once he went out of there, his daughter Gianna Floyd was born and Floyd started to spend a lot of time helping in Resurrection Houston, a church that used to deliver its services in a basketball court in the center of Cuney Homes. Patrick Ngwolo, pastor and lawyer of the church, described Floyd as an inspiration for the youngest members of the community.

Then, Floyd joined a Christian program which had dedicated some time to bring men from that district to Minnesota, where they would be offered services of rehabilitation for drug addiction and laboral reinsertion. In 2017 he began to work as a security guard at the Harbor Light Center of the Salvation Army, a provisional refuge for homeless people in the center of Minneapolis. He lost the job because of the Covid-19 pandemic and during his last weeks of life he recovered from the infection.

I decided to start with a summary of what is publicly known about this person. It might seem irrelevant, but I think it is important that right from the start we can first regard this person as a person, with virtues and flaws, a past, mistakes and life plans, just like anyone reading, and not merely as the face that appears in banners, graffiti, photographs and other media today.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/es/2020/06/09/espanol/mundo/George-Floyd-quien-es.html 

2.  May 26th

On this date, Floyd went to a groceries store. The owner, Mike Abumayyalehin, already knew Floyd and described him as someone nice and friendly to the NBC; however, that day he wasn't at the store, so his teen employee was the one who received Floyd. This employee suspected that Floyd had paid with a fake 20$ bill, so, following his boss's protocol, he reported it to 911. According to the call transcript published by the authorities, the boy claimed that Floyd had refused to return the pack of cigarettes he had bought, and he also said that this man looked "drunk" and "out of his own control".

Not much later, about 20:08, two agents arrived to the place. Floyd was there, sitting on a car, with another two people. One of the two policemen, Thomas Lane, picked his gun and aimed at Floyd (the report never said why this agent thought it was necessary to use his weapon) and took Floyd out of the car.  According to the report, Floyd actively resisted as the agent handcuffed him, but once it was done, he did no more after the agent informed that he was being arrested for having used "falsified currency". However, there was a struggle when the agents tried to introduce him into the patrol car: around 20: 14, Floyd got tense, fell into the ground and told the agents he was claustrophobic.

Then, agent Derek Chauvin appeared. When this third agent joined the scene, they tried to introduce Floyd into the patrol car once again. During that attempt, around 20:19, Chauvin took Floyd out of the passenger seat, which caused him to fall into the ground again, and there he remained, face down and handcuffed.

It was then when witnesses started to film everything with their cells, which would soon reach the Internet and the rest of the media: Floyd was being held by the agents when Chauvin placed his knee between the arrested man's head and neck, despite him saying repeatedly he couldn't breath. Floyd reportedly was in that position for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, but he his reaction stopped after 6. Videos recording the incident prove that Floyd had stopped talking by then, and that the people there urged the agents to check his pulse. One of them, named Kueng, did so and he couldn't find it. But the agents didn't move.

Finally, an ambulance took him to the Medical Center of Hennepin. George Floyd was declared dead one hour later.

Source: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-internacional-52869476

3. Repercusions: the Black Lives Matter Movement

The reactions appeared as quickly as one could expect and spread like gunpowder all over the country: in just a few days, thousands of people in over 50 different cities got out of their homes and, in the middle of the Covid-19 global pandemic, in a country where this crisis has been particularly mishandled, accumulated on the streets to protest and express their indignation. The fear to contagion was apparently left aside and uncountable civilians filled the outside under the "I can't breath" motto. These manifestations got rise to riots, disturbs, pillage and confrontation with the police. It didn't take long before the authorities began to use the force to contain them. Even reporters were arrested while they reported about them.

From the moment the news about Floyd's demise at the hands of an agent were made public, the media reported one chaos after another. President Donald Trump claimed that the name of this man was being used as an excuse to violate the confinement and the security measures against the virus and to commit crimes, attributing the disturbs to "Antifa and other radical left group." The Mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, on the other hand, pointed at white supremacists as the agitators.

To put some examples, there was even a dead person and three injured during a shooting in Indianapolis, and gum balls and tear gas was used against the protesters in Miami, where some of them sacked locals and burned vehicles (in the state of Florida, an important highway was even closed), but I don't want to make it long, since over half of my readers are Americans and they shall know about this mess better than anyone.

The Black Lives Matter was actually a collective that was born in 2013 from a hashtag against racism towards the black population, but from that day of May 26th, it gained more power than ever. For the good or the bad, the words Black Lives Matter had become the cover of every titular in the country.

Source: https://elpais.com/internacional/2020-09-06/black-lives-matter-el-incierto-rumbo-de-la-g

4. Current situation and conclusion

The United States of America is a country with a tons of things to love, including on my behalf. That's why I don't want any person from there who reads this piece of writing to be offended or feel judged when I say this country faces a problem of institutional racism.

Racism is a worldwide problem that concerns everyone and needs no definition, but for what we are trying to discuss, we must remember that it is based on hatred. Discrimination of other people for being different, despite coming in different forms, whether it is because of the race, the looks, the beliefs, opinions or one's personal issues, has a mechanic that is strange to nobody, not very different from bullying or mobbing. However, hatred is particularly difficult to treat, because, whether it is justified or not (I mean, you can hate injustice, a certain type of persona or an specific person because you know that person to perfection) hatred is a part of human nature: if one person feels hated, that person would unavoidably have the instinct to hate, and that leads to a chain reaction where it is never possible to know how, where or when it started. Sooner than later, one group blames other, while other points at another. Whatever it is what those people hate some evil, people who supposedly commit evil, or people who actually commit evil, neither of that ever goes away. What is actually destroyed are properties, homes, lives, future plans, both from innocent and guilty people, and that includes racists. It was in fact Martin Luther King who said hate destroys the hater.

I exposed the summary of the death before and I know there are unanswered questions about this tragic incident. One could argue that maybe the person in charge of the store was wrong, because, if Floyd had actually used a fake ticket, why did he stay around instead of getting away? And how is it possible that Floyd was inside a car without a problem at one moment but later he refused to enter the patrol car for being claustrophobic? And if Floyd actually used fake money, what would be his motivations? Did Chauvin actually did what he did out of racism? Well all these questions, as important as they may be in a court of justice, have no real connection with what I want to expose. I must stick with the hundred per cent real facts.

And it is a fact that a person died when he didn't have to die: it's hard for me to believe that three trained and armed agents wouldn't be able to introduce a suspect into a car, neither that Floyd struggled so hard that he had to be submitted by three agents and one of them needed to use his knee like that. It is a fact that Floyd had rights that weren't respected in that situation, and even if he had actually committed the crime he had been accused of, or any other, nothing would change.

It is a fact that agent Chauvin committed a crime and must answer for it, but it is too that the use of George Floyd's image as some sort of messianic figure to justify acts of violence and sanity measures is making no good to his memory or the rights of US citizens. Yes, people from the minority to which Floyd belonged are right to claim that their rights are often violated and that they feel unfairly unprotected as they are as human beings and US citizens as the next person, but the problem goes already further. The black population of the country is not the only victim of the consequences of racism, because people from all races and social position have been injured or somehow affected by all those acts of violence and delinquence on the streets. And one doesn't need to belong to an specific race to care about friends that may do. And maybe white people don't face such discrimination but there are many innocents among them who have suffered aggressions, robberies and serious losses as a result of the disturbs. To make matters worse, the varied US population has exposed itself to the disease the world has been looking forward to keep under control for almost half a year, and all this has brought a common feeling of discontempt and mistrust that has solved nothing to date.

One of the most negative effects and manifestations of this hatred, are a feeling of rejection and terrible words against members of the Police. I really wanted to reach this point because some users here have been rebuked or insulted for sending support to the US Police during the tough months the country is going through. At this time, it would be stupid to deny that police brutality is another proven fact and the second pillar of the movement, and not without a reason. New cases are reported periodically and that's something that may require more than a few measures, but there is no point in blaming every cop in the country.

When there are cases of bullying in a school it is the school's responsibility to deal with them and Education's responsibility to study the evolution on a bigger scale, but it is unfair to blame the teachers as a whole, because many of them do their best at work, most likely have suffered from the same problem in the past or have children who could. And when there is something wrong about the health system of a country has some flaw that may suppose risks to people's lives and health, doctors start to become the target of critics, but there are also many doctors who dedicate their lives to help ill people with everything they have and try to do new advances in the field. And similar things could be said so far about politicians and lawyers, but much like we can't conceive a society with no education, healthcare, government or law, we can't forget that men and women from the police risk their lives and physical integrity so true criminals can be arrested, children can be saved, and mayhem in the streets, schools and everywhere can be stopped. If a child dreams of becoming a cop, he shouldn't be ashamed but encouraged, and the former generation must make sure anyone who aspires to that grows up free of prejudices and under those American ideals that movies and TV have popularized all over the world, because, despite the amount of corrupted who use them to convenience (I will point at no celebrity or public figure because you must be falling asleep).

A movement of the influence like BLM's could do a lot of good, but first it needs another perspective. First of all, of course black lives matter, like any other citizen's in the country, as a being with rights and duties and capacity to fulfill both, does. None is safe from the effects of discrimination, whether it is directly or indirectly, and that is what makes the urgency to work together and not making it a problem just to some and responsibility of others. George Floyd must be remembered as a victim indeed and as a reminder of a way of thinking that needs to change for good, not as a flag under which everything is legal. 

I can't understand what is it to live under more pressure than others for belonging to a certain minority, and I am not here to tell anyone how he or she should feel about these recent incidents. That been said, Spain has its fair share of problems because of racism, immigration, ignorance and institutional hatred, but this could be talked about in another chapter (trust me, it would be a long one), but that is out of the question now. The statement that I am trying to make is that the wrong that some people do can't serve to justify the wrong one does. Mostly, because it never brings the greater good. And you don't have to believe me, but History. Hatred can't be fought back with more hatred, because the actions of one can't justify the actions of the many (a.n: a buddy from here gave me this quote as a contribution; I will respect his privacy and not say his name, but thank you👍🏻). When a person decides to do do something, he/she must find its justification on a conviction about some greater good, and not on the actions of another person.

As a close up, all I can do is to extend my most sincere support to those who have suffered or are suffering because of any of this at the other side of the Atlantic.

This article was risky and I have to say it doesn't feel like my best. I might add some things in the future, but I am honest about the idea I try to transmit. It's not like I am saying something new or being really useful to the cause, but I didn't want to remain silent while this subject is still going on.

I totally want that Watties from there can live in a safer environment, and as it has been remarked, that implies to support the safety of everyone there, so please anyone who reads stay out of trouble and keep respecting the measures against the Covid. That story also has to end somewhen...

Time to close for tonight, Watties! More than ever, your bartender here needs to know if this writing is actually good or bad for reading. Even if it is not very useful, it is something I have gladly taken the time to investigate and build some coherent opinion about.

NOW I WILL WORK IN THE NEXT CHAPTER OF WEDDING BELLS WHEN I HAVE TIME, I PROMISE ON THE CROSS I WEAR AROUND MY NECK!

That's all for now, but I'll be back soon! See you!!👋👋👋

Source: https://elpais.com/internacional/2020-09-06/black-lives-matter-el-incierto-rumbo-de-la-gran-protesta-racial.html