I Can't Breathe

“I Can’t Breathe! I Can’t Breathe!” The words of a man asking for his basic right, to breathe, something that is essential for survival as humans. These were the final, soul ripping words uttered by George Floyd, a black American man as he lay on the ground- a white police officer kneeling on his neck, emotionless, with no humanity in his eyes, they were full of evil, as he starved George Floyd of oxygen. 16 times he pleaded for this, begging for his own life, in a matter of 9 minutes, and yet the police officer knelt there, with no care or value for this man’s life. Even when Floyd’s body became lifeless, he still reused to move and only decided to move his knee from Floyd’s neck when the medics showed up. All this while, the 3 other officers aided and watched on, despite the bystanders demanding them to stop and help Floyd, they did absolutely nothing. It is truly shameful, sickening, inhumane and overall disgusting.

However heinous this crime was, we all are well aware this is anything but new. We have heard the names of innocent black people being killed solely because of the colour of their skin. The tragic stories of Ahmaud Arbery, Tamir Rice, Breanna Taylor and David Dungay are common knowledge to us all. Really, what is it that makes someone have such extreme hatred, such fear, such contempt towards another human being just because of their race? And in the USA, it is said that blacks are 3 times more likely to be killed by police. And this isn’t shocking, blacks have been made to feel as f they have been living in a state of terror for over 400 years, this has been happening for centuries.

And now during this lockdown, during this pandemic, the dire situation of black and ethnic communities has been highlighted. There are higher black deaths from COVID than any other race which reflects the underlying deep economic and social problems as well as the injustices. The black community are often living in areas of poverty, unemployment, poor housing, poor access to healthcare and low quality of schooling. A real society is supposed to serve the people, but this society and this system isn’t made to benefit people of colour, it really isn’t.

Being someone of Caribbean decent, I have heard plenty of stories from family members about the true injustice, discrimination and racism they face on a daily basis. The system uses racial, religious and even gender differences to create division within our own communities and between us. This helps them to distract people from the problems that the system is causing itself. Because while we are blaming each other for the problems in society, we are steered away from blaming the system, which instilled these certain beliefs into people in the first place. We should not be attacking white people, or Asians or other races for racism, we should be blaming the upper power and the western colonialists that created and pushed these values and beliefs into our society. It’s time to do something about this. Everyone is human so everyone should be treated as an equal.

Racism is deeply ingrained within the systems that we live by today, whether it is capitalism or socialism. We must think outside the box, find new solutions to these diseased systems, where racism is a virus and we must find a cure. Yes, we should educate, we should rewrite the colonial history we get taught at school, we should protest, we should embrace our heritage and cultures. But we must also do more than that, because even if we scrap the police system and educate others about racism, the reality will be the same, more George Floyds will be brutally killed since racism is ultimately systemic. Trying to change things within the system won’t better the world we live in because, it is the same system with the same values and the same wrong priorities. As a fellow human I believe that we need to break these cycles or brutality and pain, so humanity can flourish, so we can save those who are constantly suffering. We can’t keep recycling failure in the fight for justice.