George Floyd

For years I have known about it, watched the videos, sat and cried, wondering why this is happening and why people are letting it. I’ve wished that it would stop and that people would see the innocence within those lost instead of just a stereotype, but it hasn’t. Yesterday I saw the video of Christopher Mitchell, he was 23 years old and killed in cold blood after complying with the officers orders, being respectful and even apologetic. It took 15 seconds for them to take his life away. A life that mattered. Today it was George Floyd, who laid on the road for 7 minutes whilst officers Derek Chauvin and Tou Thao held their knee on his neck as he struggled to breathe. His death was reported as a ‘medical problem’ until the footage of a bystander was released. His life mattered. I don’t know who it will be tomorrow, but there will be a tomorrow if we don’t do something about it. I’ll be honest, I’ve never really said anything about this issue because I never knew what to say and felt like it really wasn’t my place. But this world is unfair, and unfortunately it has favourites, favourites that are defined by the pigment of somebody’s skin. I know that for a lot of you reading this, you will just go about your day afterwards, because it doesn’t impact you, but it should. We are all people, why should your morals change about the value of someone’s life because they don’t exactly look like you? Do they resemble a friend, an uncle, a cousin, a family member? If you can’t do something for you, at least do something for them.

I’m not going to sit here and act like I can single handily change the outcome of this situation because of my white privilege. And I know that sounds controversial, but it’s true. For some reason, it was decided in society that anybody who’s white automatically gets a head start in life, and if you can’t acknowledge that, then how much change can be made? I’m not saying my life is very glamourous, but I’ve never had to sit down as a kid and be told that from the second you were born, the world decided you were not good enough, that you are going to face so much injustice in your life, purely because of the colour of your skin. I know these things because unfortunately, I’ve had to observe them myself. And out of the many things I’ve learned in life, this is one I still don’t understand. We might not get a say over how members of authority get to treat people, but when we have a choice to vote, please vote. We have been given a platform and have used it purely for entertainment purposes. But what if we use it to educate? They always say that our generation are the next leaders and after attending climate strikes and seeing kids as small as 3 stand up and try and make a difference, I’m so excited. But please let this be a mindset that doesn’t carry on to the next generation. We need to change our mindset and finally see that this is wrong. We can’t go avoiding this forever because “maybe it doesn’t concern you” or “it’s too violent”, it is happening, and not to just anyone, but people with names, people with families and lives that mattered. It happened to Emmett Till, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Mike Brown, Ahmaud Arbery, Sean Reed, Bothem Jean, Atatiana Jefferson, Jonathan Ferrell, Renisha Mcbride, Jordan Davis, Alton Sterling, the Charleston 9, Eric Garner and Freddie Gray. Who knows who it will be tomorrow, I really hope there isn’t a tomorrow.