Silent Echoes: Unveiling The Legacy of George Floyd and The Struggle For Equality.
Table Of Content
- George Floyd's Legacy: A Painful Reflection on Racial Injustice.
- The Pronouncement, “I Can't Breathe": A Peculiar Story of Suffocation.
- Beyond George Floyd: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Racial Biases.
- Global Ironies: Democracy, Law Enforcement, and Inequality.
- Re-Living the George Floyd's Final Moments.
George Floyd's Legacy: A Painful Reflection on Racial Injustice.
Whenever the name George Floyd is mentioned, what thoughts run through your mind? Pain, racial discrimination, retaliation, upheaval, or the term ‘black lives matter’? Our daily struggles are a reflection of what we leave behind. George Floyd’s encounter with a racist oppressor opened avenues to fight a just cause; that of overcoming racial discrimination. Our future generations are inheritors of what is embedded in our footprints. Floyd's sad encounter and resistance to oppression ignited a revolution that all are created equal. Every human being has inherent rights and liberties that cannot be violated at will.
The Pronouncement, “I Can't Breathe": A Peculiar Story of Suffocation.
The pronunciation of "I can't breathe" is reminiscent of what we go through in life. It makes us identify with this black man who suffered what we can call race suffocation. We all go through situations in life which makes us feel as if someone is pressing their knees on our necks as we helplessly struggle to pronounce, "we can't breathe." But as fate would have it, it took the demise of an innocent black man to reawaken our senses to the scale of injustices still prevalent in our societies.
Beyond George Floyd: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and Racial Biases.
That the race problem is not only a problem suffered by those at the bottom of the societal ladder, is evidenced by what befell personalities like Martin Luther King, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Barack Obama among others. A case in point is that of Obama who was requested to produce a birth certificate when vying for POTUS position, and yet he was a US citizen by birth. To compound his maltreatment, his leadership was qualified as grossly incompetent! The race struggle is not exclusively American for even Meghan Markle had to renounce her position as the Duchess of Sussex due to racism.
Global Ironies: Democracy, Law Enforcement, and Inequality.
It is ironic that world superpowers preach democracy while their laws are characteristic of the infringement of all matter’s human rights. The kind of peace they advocate is administered through the barrel of a gun as evidenced by the massive looting in the African continent and the Middle East. Their footprints are stained with human blood as their multinationals encourage warring factions to keep fighting as they loot the indigenous peoples' natural resources. Whoever does not dance to their tune on matters of gender equality and LGBTQA+++ is perceived as an enemy and subjected to harsh economic sanctions.
Re-Living the George Floyd's Final Moments.
As mentioned earlier, we all resemble George Floyd with our oppressors like Derek Chauvin pressing their knees against our necks. We are being suffocated slowly, and even if we shout "mama" there will be no help for she will also have been extinguished. Coincidentally, the demise of Floyd happened at a time when the world was being suffocated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
By Dr. Mohamed Bahaidar (Motivational Speaker, Expert on social issues, Recipient of the most distinguished award in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, and an Author.)