A. Tackling Racism.

A | The Birth of 'Black Lives Matter'

When Barack Obama was sworn in in 2008, many people thought that the racial nightmare was close to an end in the country. They hoped that the country could make up with its past of racism, and achieve Martin Luther King’s dream of equality and peace. But, the reverse happened. A CBS poll showed some years ago that more and more Americans believe that race relations are getting worse. Most of the drop occurred in the year 2014, when the US saw the worst race riots. Nobody expected such riots to happen, but it did. And t-shirts and banners could be noticed with the never-before-heard phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’. The phrase 'Black Lives Matter' (BLM) was first coined in 2013 by three female activists in a Twitter hashtag in the wake of the acquittal of George Zimmerman, a man who had fatally shot a 17-year-old African-American teenager named Trayvon Martin. The hashtag swiftly emerged as the biggest racial protest movement since the 1960s. It stood out as a touchstone of anti-racism rallies in the United-States, seeking to shed light on the racial imbalances dark-skinned people were confronted with. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement, Black LIves Matter has no top leader, but young digital activists composing their speech in Twitter-friendly soundbites. Furthermore, the movement disseminated in the country due to the staggering number of racism-imbued deaths. Here are two examples:

• ERIC GARNER: He was accused of illegally selling cigarettes on the streets. Although he was unarmed, a police officer resorted to a choke-hold, resulting in Eric's death in 2014. His death sparked a rallying cry, denouncing police brutality and the excessive use of choke-holds.

• MICHAEL BROWN Jr: He allegedly thieved a packet of cigarettes. A white police officer gunned him down in response. It ignited a wave of outrage throughout the country, with vicious confrontations between protesters and police officers, who retaliated with tear gas and billy clubs.

The BLM movement regained momentum after Floyd's death in 2020. Floyd was pinned to the ground for more than 9 minutes for allegedly using a counterfeit bill.

B | How The Case of George Floyd Helped The Fight Against Racial Injustice?

Every civil action in the country helped the fight against racial injustice. They set in motion concrete initiatives or laws to tackle race-related issues. For instance, NYC’s lawmakers abrogated a law that kept police records under wraps, and Mississippi decided to symbolically lift down its State Flag. The wind of change is described as rare, and consequential. It proves that there is an awakening in America. Actually, the US has experienced a profound social change. It’s high time Americans relied on Democracy to be heard.

Appalling. It is the only word that can describe such a tragedy. Perhaps the word is not strong enough to give a full picture of that moment in American history after all. Still, it was an appalling episode. An episode that sowed trepidation throughout the country, but also sparked, or rather favoured, the Civil Rights movement. An unfair death, a witness of racial prejudices. A miscomprehension somehow, but a truly devastating loss. Perhaps, the microcosm of what American society looked like back then. In 1955, 15-year-old Emmett Till, a teenaged African-American born and raised in Chicago, got on a train to go to Mississippi to visit relatives. He had never travelled to the South, it was his first trip there. He perceived this trip as an opportunity to discover a new place. He was significantly ecstatic. Before embarking on the train, Emmett’s mother warned her son that he would have to abide by the rules, and never disrespect a white person in Mississippi. She feared that her son could end up being put in harm’s way in the South. At that time, in the Jim Crow Era, racial segregation plagued the country, and more bitterly the Deep South, a southern part of the US that had been home to slavery centuries prior. The Deep South was known for enforcing more stringent rules, targeting African-Americans. It was home to many killings and lynchings of African-Americans. But Emmett reassured his mother, telling her that he’d be cautious. Once in Mississippi, he worked very hard all day long in cotton fields with his kith and kin, under the sweltering temperatures of the South. What a pleasant activity for an energy-brimming boy. He was very delighted to discover new horizons. But one day, everything changed. He got into a grocery store held by the Bryant family. He found the shopkeeper, a white woman named Carolyn Bryant, gorgeous and whistled at her in a flirtatious manner. It was neither out of disrespect nor intent on offending her. He was just a young boy from the North who had just complimented an unknown woman. She could have appreciated his compliment, but that was not the case. Instead, his behaviour was deemed derogatory, and Carolyn dashed to the back room to fetch a gun. She aimed at the young boy in an attempt to shoot him down. But, she missed her aim, and Emmett and his relatives hastily drove away, hit by terror. Emmett remained at his great-uncle's house for some days, trying to lay low. However, Till's interaction with Bryant, perhaps unwittingly, violated the unwritten code of behaviour for a black male interacting with a white female in the Jim Crow-era South. Days later, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother went to Till's great-uncle's house and abducted Till. He was blamed for offending Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store. He was ruthlessly lynched and dumped into the Mississippi River. Emmett's holidays turned into a nightmare! His corpse was dredged up a few days later, trained back to Chicago. It goes without saying that it was a huge shock for his mother. She lost her unique son. 15 years of life vanished off the Earth. Because of narrow-mindedness. Because of racism. His mother insisted that the casket would be open so that everyone could see the unimaginable level of barbarism which her son had died from. Emmett’s face was mutilated and heavily deformed. Thousands of people attended the funeral, and hesitantly approached the open casket, many of them passed out, hit by shock and horror. Photographs of the open casket were published in black-oriented newspapers, rallying support and sympathy across the United States, and even the whole world. In parallel, in September 1955, an all-white jury found Bryant not guilty of Till's murder. The death of Emmett Till ignited outrage throughout the country, and greatly propelled the Civil Rights movement. Till posthumously became an icon of the fight against racial segregation in the US.

Inspired by Wikipedia | Written by www.english-ease.fr 

Part TWO | Today's Legacy

B. Racism Remains a Plague

A | Racial Bias

B | Black-dominated Prisons

The bar chart under study from the BBC lays the emphasis on the US prison population per 100,000 residents. African-American are over-represented in prison. They are more likely to be arrested because, undeniably, police have a strong racial bias. Similarly, African-Americans are more likely to be slain in the streets. Such a situation is awful, especially because racial bigotry can alter African-Americans’ daily life, in employment, healthcare and education. Indeed, the access to certain resources or positions in society is highly correlated to whom the person is. At the end of the day, it may favour a lack of equity in the workplace, widening the gap between the ones from the mainstream culture (a majority of whites) and the ones trying to maintain their idiosyncrasies. 

According to Merriam Webster, an ‘idiosyncrasy’ [ˌɪdiəʊˈsɪŋkrəsi] is a peculiarity of constitution or temperament : an individualising characteristic or quality.

To a further extent, upward social mobility is less likely amongst dark-skinned people due to several factors unfavourably weighing on the balance, especially their capacity to experience social ascent. It is the reason why African-Americans are more likely to face poverty and joblessness, hence inequalities still quite apparent between whites and non-whites in the US.