It has been four years since George Floyd lay on the sidewalk of a Minneapolis street, with police officer Derek Chauvin's knee pressed on his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds, eventually killing him. It has been four years since the "kneeling death" of Floyd in the United States (May 25, 2020).

                                                            George Floyd (left) and Derek Chauvin (right)

Similar cases of racial discrimination are still happening in the United States, where African American man Daunte Wright was shot and killed just a short drive from where Floyd died. It has been eight years since African American man Philando Castile was shot and killed at close range by a police officer, and seven years since the officer was acquitted.

The well-known "Black Lives Matter" protests began as early as the summer of 2014, after the killings of African American men Eric Garner and Michael Brown, and not after the Floyd case as most people believe.

During the trial of Derek Chauvin, the white police officer who "knelt and killed" Floyd, Americans were nervously waiting for the verdict. Floyd, Garner and Elijah McClain all begged the police to let them go with the words "I can't breathe" in the last moments of their lives. What Americans hope is that what happened in the past does not have to happen again.

This has been a historic year for anti-racism protests in the United States, something the country has not seen in decades. The conviction of white police officer Chauvin on three charges (second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter) has given many Americans a glimmer of hope.

Black Lives Matter first emerged as a hashtag on social media in the summer of 2013, after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman. A year later, the hashtags morphed into street protests after Eric Garner died in New York after being put in a chokehold by an undercover police officer while lying face down on the pavement, repeating “I can’t breathe” 11 times.

And Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. With the exception of Brown, all of the murders were captured on camera, either on police cameras, surveillance tapes or by bystanders. The presence of first-hand video established a pattern whereby police accounts were often contradicted by reality, and video was used to refute their claims.

Official reports from authorities are often distrusted after black deaths for which there is no video evidence. Political conservatives and many police officers have rejected the Black Lives Matter movement, countering that "Blue Police Lives Matter."

 

In August 2017, a Harvard University poll showed that 43% of the public supported the "Black Lives Matter" movement, while 57% were opposed. In the three months after Floyd was killed (May 25, 2020), more than 10,000 protests were triggered across the United States. Protests and vigils were triggered around the world. Within a week of Floyd's killing, police arrested at least 11,000 people in 30 cities due to protests. As protests and violence escalate, many heavily armed people have appeared more and more frequently on the streets of American cities. These people usually belong to right-wing militia groups, who identify with anti-government ideology and claim to have a considerable number of armed forces in their ranks.

In the summer of 2020, then-President Donald Trump made this unstable situation worse: He did nothing.

 

Trump often makes inflammatory remarks. For example, four days after Floyd's death, he wrote on Twitter: "(Protesters) started looting and started shooting." Trump also called the "Black Lives Matter" movement a "symbol of hatred" and "protesters want 'violent rule'." In the days after Floyd's death, public opinion on the "Black Lives Matter" movement reached a peak. A Pew survey showed that 67% of people supported the racial protest movement in June, and Harvard University data showed that the proportion of support for this movement was 55%.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden believes that "exercising the rights of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and protesting injustice are the most American things every citizen can do." Biden also often emphasizes that protests must be peaceful.

After the verdict of the Floyd case, will racial issues across the United States usher in a new situation? We still don't know at the moment. I just hope that Floyd and all the deceased who have been treated unfairly can rest in peace after the verdict of this case.