by Nick O’Connell
EU Political Analysis

4 June 2020

What is happening throughout the US in response to the murder of George Floyd, the latest in a long list of victims of police violence, is the result of decades, if not centuries, of outright oppression, racism, and neglect towards millions of African American citizens.

It is not an irrational reaction to violence. It is not an opportunistic movement aimed at looting local businesses. Nor is it an orchestrated attempt at destabilizing Trump’s reelection campaign. Not everything is about him.

We need to ask ourselves why this is happening. How we reached this level of unrest. And how this level of police violence fits into a larger history of discrimination in the US. It is not enough to watch the news or scroll through social media. A superficial understanding of what’s happening across the country ignores the context of America’s racial history.

Anyone judging what’s happening from a distance is part of the problem.

What is happening now in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder is a result of decades of progress so slow it by nature betrays the fear of change from a system that benefits white people over people of color. It is a mix of frustrating stalemate, institutionalized racism, and death.

No one protests for fun. No one riots from a place of joy. Unrest comes because there is no other choice when a system ignores the words and peaceful actions of African Americans.

This is not an excuse to loot stores and damage cities across the country just because. This is not so vacuous as an organized attempt to scare off white Americans, as so many white, privileged people like to say.

What we saw this past week was a movement to restore the human dignity of millions that have only known oppression for over four centuries. Failing to see this moment for what it is will eventually lead to more polarization, violence, and death.

Europe is no different.

Similar levels of abuse, racism, and violence towards minority groups are also common in Europe, though they often receive less attention. Few can point to similar levels of civil protests, while the examples of police brutality are endless.

Europeans who believe this kind of racism is only seen in the US are deluding themselves.

In the past few days, European far-right leaders and their supporters have pointed their fingers at what’s happening in the US as proof of Black violence and the leftist love affair with civil unrest.

All the while, Italy closes its borders to people fleeing the Libyan civil war. It illegally detains migrants for indefinite periods of time with no access to a lawyer. The Italian state has deported thousands to countries engulfed in conflict or economic stagnation.

This is hardly different from the discrimination occurring across the Atlantic.

Discrimination and oppression in Europe certainly look different compared to the US. The historical origins are different. The societal responses are different. But the root cause of each is the same: racism.

Ignore that, and you are buying into racist elements of whatever society of which you count yourself a part of. Dispute that, and you deny the oppression Black and brown minorities have faced in their daily lives from go.

Instead of denouncing protesters' violence in Minneapolis and other American cities, or digging into Floyd’s or any other African American’s past to find elements that would “justify” their death, instead, ask yourself the question: why?

Why are police officers murdering unarmed African Americans? Why is the police responding with intimidation and violence to thousands of people taking to the streets in protest?

Instead of dismissing the African migrant selling umbrellas and lighters outside any given Italian supermarket, or lamenting the presence of thousands of people reaching Europe’s coasts to “steal jobs,” ask yourself again: why?

Why are people across the Italian migrant community protesting against the government? Why are thousands risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean?

Taking a more critical approach, and revising our understanding of the society we live in reveals the ingrained racism of both American and European societies.

It unmasks a system that says that it’s okay to murder a Black man because we want to believe he was––without evidence––a violent offender anyway. It sheds light on a society that says it’s okay to get mad at an African street vendor or farmer if they demand rights merely to be seen as a fellow human being.

And it reveals that maybe, just maybe, people crossing the Mediterranean are not doing so because of what they’ll find in Europe, but rather for what they are leaving behind.

Absorbing all of the information, images, or commentary we have over the past week without asking ourselves what is really happening and why, makes us complicit in a racist system we have become trained to see as the norm.

When the murder of a Black man in the US or a person from the migrant community in Europe goes without protest, we’re saying we accept it.

So when politicians promise to bring the country back on track or back to normality, like Trump so often does, protests, like those we’ve seen on behalf of George Floyd, remind us that there has in fact never been a just, normal society.  Equality has never been enforced because the system doesn’t call on us to do so.

Normalcy then is inequality. Normalcy, as we’ve defined it, is inhumanity. Our focus should not be about returning to normalcy.

What is needed is a new order, where Black lives are seen, Black voices are heard, and where the right to live and the right to prosper is not determined by the color of your skin but from being here and living and inherently deserving of dignity.

We need an order now that acknowledges the racism that has been poisoning this country for centuries and that builds on that awareness to build a better future for all.