Black Lives (still) Matter!

Hannah Reinisch

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George Floyd on May 25th, 2020, millions of Americans have been on the streets to protest against the discrimination of the black population by the police and the criminal justice system. They did not protest without reason: In 2020, the American police have killed at least one black man or women every single week. Black people are killed at a rate at least twice as high as the rate of white people killed by the police.

In the justice system, it is often the case that black people receive harsher sentences than white people and are often sent to jail over minor offences. A famous example for this can be found in the mere 14 days that (white) Felicity Huffman spent in jail following the college scandal (where she faked her daughters’ membership in a sports club so that they could go to uni), whilst a black woman in New York received a 5 year sentence for registering her kid in another district so it could go to school there. The discrepancy is visible - and the anger of the American people is all too understandable.

What has the response to the increased media attention and public outrage been? Statues of Cristopher Columbus and other colonialists and slave owners have been taken down all over the country. The Confederate flag, which has been a symbol for white supremacy, has been banned by many organisations. The actions have not only been symbolic: Minneapolis, the city where George Floyd was killed, have reassembled their police force. Democrats introduced the “Justice in Policing Act of 2020”, which aims to tackle police brutality. Much remains to be done to combat the centuries of systemic racism and violence in the US.

The protests in the US have provided Europe with a chance too: Several countries have used this renewed outrage to reflect on their colonial past and systemic discrimination today. Belgium, for example, has publicly condemned the racially motivated actions of King Leopold II in the Congo, where over 10 million (black) people lost their lives. The refreshed Black Lives Matter movement has provided all of us with the opportunity to confront our own racial bias and to speak openly about the remaining (systemic) racial injustices today.

Another major event in American politics is looming up ahead: The Presidential Election on November the 4th. Both candidates, President Trump and Democratic nominee Biden, have promised criminal justice reform. It remains to be seen how and if this will actually be implemented.