The fifth anniversary of the murder of Black citizen George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer did not go unnoticed in the United States.
By: Guillermo Alvarado
Although it did not attract the large crowds that might have been expected, the fifth anniversary of the murder of Black citizen George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer, who was trying to arrest him, did not go unnoticed in the United States.
No one who witnessed it at the time will forget the images of Officer Derek Chauvin pressing Floyd's neck to the ground with his knee until he caused his death. The other officers present did nothing to prevent this, making them accomplices.
This weekend, dozens of people gathered at the intersection in a residential area of Minneapolis where the crime occurred, covering it with protest signs.
The event occurred during Donald Trump's first term in office and provoked a huge wave of protests across the country, forcing the justice system to prosecute Chauvin and send him to prison.
Five years later, under the second Trump administration, the situation is very different, with many people disassociating themselves from the commemoration.
Even the Black Lives Matter movement, which became a powerful force in exposing and seeking solutions to racial problems in the US, where abuses and violence against ethnic minorities by white people are frequent, has diminished.
However, on 25 May, a sharp weakening of this group could be observed, largely due to Trump's policies against social and racial integration initiatives, as well as those demanding respect for so-called sexual dissidence.
This did not go unnoticed by Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who called for continued advocacy for racial justice and equality worldwide despite the setbacks faced by inclusion initiatives.
Floyd's family also urged people to continue pushing for reforms, regardless of the hostile political climate unleashed by Trump and his more extreme supporters, some of whom are even calling for Derek Chauvin to be pardoned — a call that has been joined by controversial billionaire Elon Musk.
Despite the current U.S. government's racist aggressiveness, there is data that cannot be ignored: since Floyd's murder in 2020, more than a thousand people have lost their lives at the hands of police officers in that country.
