May 24 will be noted down as a historic day in humanity’s affairs. A White police officer, Derek Chauvin, reported to be intimidated by Blacks, using his authority of policing, knelt dominantly on a Black person’s throat for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, thus accomplished sending him to the next world. A grown man called out for Mama. Then he spoke his final words: “I can’t breathe.” In the days before smartphones, no one would have given a second thought about the incidents except a few #blacklivesmatter activists. But the days of police dominance are over, and the “qualified immunity” has been unjustly become a shield for racial profiling.
Because few people took videos of the incident, the police lies were exposed and Blacks, Browns, and White all over the US spilled on to the street to magnify and echo, “I can’t breathe.” Then it spread to the world. This naked display of aggression of one group of humanity against another has sparked a protest movement by thousands across other countries too - the UK, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Brazil, Indonesia, France, Australia, and Canada. They are doing well in condemning racism that has resulted in police brutality against blacks in disproportionate numbers. Many have died unceremoniously, and not a single police had been held accountable.
Without any doubt, the repercussions from the protest marches have been mind-boggling. Even NASCAR has removed the confederate flags from its events. That is amazing. But there is the deal. Millions of people have now stood up against the unequal treatment by “privileged” White on state-oppressed Blacks. The reality is that there is a Chauvin in every human being in this planet. This has been pointed out by people about Indians and Nepalese who have given their support to the Blacks and participated in the event too. But that is not the end of it.
All those people who are so concerned about racial discrimination are practicing their own discrimination in daily lives. Yes, I see it every day. Take for example how men and women are treated in different societies. Is there no inequality? And what about the treatment of boys versus the girls? Sons and daughters? Are there no inequalities there?
In human societies, all kinds of inequalities and discriminations are practiced that go to the same fundamental root as racism, placing a higher value on something and lower on others. Even those people protesting against George Floyd’s death in the streets, when they go home in the evening, their dinner table might be serving steaks, chicken, fish, and fowls. What about that?
Are humans so superior that all other lives are just meant to be their culinary adventure? China recently banned eating dogs, otherwise, they even had a festival to eat dogs. So, for humanity, other forms of lives certainly are not much of a concern, and creating meat industries to trade on the lives of innocent lives of other species is an accepted norm. Here is a saying by Doug Larson that might give you a chuckle: “Never doubt the courage of the French. They were the ones who discovered that snails are edible. When are we going to really stop and think about what we are doing? It seems humans are still in the hunter-gatherer mentality trying to survive one day at a time.
Colonial history is rife with tons of barbaric activities from raping women of conquered nations to indiscriminately killing children, old people, and everyone in the way. Just go to the Quora questions and answers, and you will be aghast reading tales of historical atrocities of every conquering nation during the wars with marauding soldiers lynching the natives. No animals have such deplorable records as humans, supposedly the least intelligent species.
It may have been the knew of Derek Chauvin on that occasion that killed George Floyd on March 24 in the streets of Minneapolis, but every human being is placing his knee on something else and killing acceptably on this planet. If you learn to open your mind, you can see it. The most glaring should be the collective knee of humanity on Mother Earth’s neck.