The funeral service of George Floyd was held in his hometown of Houston, Texas. I sat for close to 5 hours glued to my laptop for the proceedings via CBS News on YouTube. I think it’s telling that the last time I sat for hours watching a funeral was December 2013 when the great Nelson Mandela was buried in Qunu, his ancestral village. “Third Ward, Cuney Homes, that’s where he was born at. But everybody is going to remember him around the world. He is going to change the world,” said Rodney Floyd, George’s brother.
Since Big Floyd was brutally murdered by a policeman in Minneapolis 2 weeks ago, I’ve been following the events unfold in the US with great interest. But what really stimulated me was the explosion of anger on social media, Black Twitter in the UK in particular, mainly among Academics, Journalists, Writers, Artists, and Politicians. I should add, mostly inspirational Black women.
I watched (read) as inspiring experts connected what George Floyd experienced to broader themes: Black people in the UK who died while in custody; the suspicionless police stop and searches experienced by Black people; the high unemployment levels among Black and other minority groups in the UK; the Grenfell tragedy, the Windrush scandal; Black women are 5 times more likely to die from childbirth complications than their white counterparts; the overrepresentation of Black people in prisons; only 1% of professors in universities are Black; the 13% attainment gap between white students obtaining a first compared to Black, Asian or ethnic minority students.
Black, Brown and Other Ethnic minority people have suffered disproportionately from COVID-19. And also Black people were twice as likely to be fined over lockdown breaches by the Met police as to white people.
Having witnessed a powerful united voice against anti-Black racism and White Supremacy on Twitter, on Saturday 06, I took to the streets to join protests against racism. I was at the London #BlackLivesMatter protest in Parliament Square. But it was on Sunday when I realised that there was something extraodinary about this current movement. That moment came when I learnt that in the port city of Bristol protestors have toppled the statue of slave trader Edward Colston and thrown it into the harbour to the large crowds jubilant cheers. He was “responsible for the transportation of nearly 85,000 African captives in the late 17th century”, writes historian, Professor Otele, in the Guardian.
What was significant about the powerful images coming from Bristol was that the majority of the protestors, like in London, were white, and even those who led and took down the bronze statue. “All over the world I’ve seen grandchildren of slave masters tearing down slave master statues”, Reverend Al Sharpton noted during George Floyd’s funeral.
It was deeply satisfying to see Colston’s statue being thrown into the river. And it appears that it was that very moment that forced Britain to begin the conversation in order to come to terms with its racist colonial past. The past that continues to affect the present. The past that has direct consequeces to people such as myself. My home country, Botswana, was once a Britain territory (conveniently termed Protectorate) between 1885 and 1966, known as the Bechuanaland Protectorate, governed by British colonial administrators.
On George Floyd’s funeral day, the statue of another slave trader, Robert Milligan was removed from West India Quay. And the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, tweeted that a new commission has been set up to ‘review and improve the diversity of London’s public landmarks’.
Indeed this is a lot to take in in such a short period. The time now is 04:43 on the morning of 10 June 2020, as I’m finishing writing up this piece, before I can finally go to sleep. Rather my summary of the events of the past 2 weeks following George Floyd’s lynching.
“This is a very exciting moment, I don’t know if we have ever experienced this kind of global challenge to racism and to the consequences of slavery”, the great Angela Davis told Channel 4 news.
Clearly, this is a historic moment. It is encouraging to witness a visible shift in consciousness when it comes to anti-Black racism and its effects. It’s very fitting that this week, the book ‘Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race’ by Reni Eddo-Lodge has topped the charts in Britain’s non-fiction book bestseller, the first and only Black woman to do so.
What a moment to be alive!
The struggle continues.
Blessing Kgosi e tsile Kgasa 