The Whitsun week-end of 2020, will not forget many people in the USA, probably so fast: In Indianapolis, at least two people have died after shots on the edge of protests in the city centre. In New York, two police cars drove up on a demonstrating crowd, from which they were previously thrown at me.
And in Chicago, has been increased according to Reports, the service time of police officers on twelve hours, in order to get the situation under control. In more than a dozen cities, a night’s output was lock. In the meantime, have expanded to protests in many cities between West and East coast, in many places, and there was also destruction, violent incidents and arrests.
“I can’t breathe” is to be read on a number of Transparent to
Particularly confusing, the Situation was again in Minneapolis, where the rage last Monday took its origin: the Afro-American George Floyd died after a white police officer had knelt minutes long on his neck. On Amateur videos is to hear how the one who was bound, lying on the ground man gasps for air and several times I can’t breathe gasps “” – “I can’t breathe”.
The set can be found on countless Transparent again, many of the protesters refer to him in General on racial discrimination, the black people in the United States learn the decades after the abolition of the racial segregation is still on a regular basis.
comparisons with the civil rights movement
DW correspondent Stefan Simons, is since Thursday in Minneapolis and spoke with many demonstrators. “Compare it with the civil rights movement of the 1960s,” he says. This will also be interpreted negatively: “Many say, 50, 60 years ago now and it has changed nothing.” Indeed, national statistics reveal there are still large differences between the skin colors, be it in terms of the average salary, the access to medical care, and even life expectancy.
Many US-Americans do not believe that under the current President, Donald Trump – the white racists, for example, to a right on parade in Charlottesville 2017 as “good people” had referred to – this will change something. Trump called Floyd’s death a “terrible tragedy”. A Tweet Trumps of Saturday, some understood as a call to radical supporters, to get involved and to arrange literally a “Make America Great Again”-night.
during the day, family’s protest, at night, looting
Trump accused the demonstrators in front of his headquarters, to be due to the memory of George Floyd, but to want to mischief. Such people there are in Minneapolis, says DW correspondent Simon’s on the phone: “This is nothing out of the ordinary: often, if there is protest, a mix of such people, including and make Trouble.” Reuters/John Minchillo/AP/dpa In a blue cloud of smoke: police in full gear during a protest in the vicinity of the 5. Police district in Minneapolis.
riots, looting and arson were mainly a phenomenon of the hours of the night. On Saturday afternoon, the mood on the Central Lake Street was a very different, says Simons: “it was basically family time. Many people have done Selfies in front of your burned-out favourite buildings.” The protests were also a lot of White involved, according to his observations by the way: “We have seen signs with the words ‘Fuck you, white Silence’, which was not, in my view, not necessary, because from the beginning, many White were there.” A peaceful protest walk on Saturday evening, for example, he estimated the distribution of 20 percent White, 80 percent Black.
I have changed the composition of the Participants: “We saw less Black people, more White and younger people,” says Simons. The parties Involved were getting younger and younger-and drunk – because alcohol shops were one of the first that were looted. “The character of the protest had changed: The people, plundered, robbed, set fire to, to let your anger run free and were always drunk.” Meanwhile, many people from outside of the twin cities of Minneapolis / Saint Paul on – the-go-be help such as with a rifle-armed man who told Simons that he had come from the neighboring state of Wisconsin, “to”. Where, exactly, he wanted to help, he did not say that.
freedom of the press under attack: “could Have been a problem”
Simons has witnessed in the course of the past few days, the protests changed and from night to night, more security forces – in addition to various police units like in some other cities now also in the national guard in Minneapolis presence – tough handles.
The increasingly tense situation even more difficult for journalists in their work: In the early morning hours of Friday (local time) was taken from a CNN correspondent velvet TV team temporarily fixed. On Saturday, two employees of the Reuters news Agency and a Swedish newspaper correspondent by rubber bullets were injured.
Also, DW correspondent Stefan Simons came in the night to Sunday, a similar incident: “Five minutes before we wanted to do a live switch, we heard something to our ears over the sound, that was a shot.” On the video of the DW-camera man is visible in the Background, indistinct, like a police officer immediately after the shot noise of an object descending like a weapon after the shot. “My camera man was exposed to danger even more strongly than I would have been really ugly,” says Simons.
Corona: “Social Distancing? Forget it, not in these protests,”
Simons is also for the upcoming Sunday in the evening on a confusing Happened – “it can go on,” peacefully or by force. He appreciates the demonstrators ‘ anger will only subside when the three police officers who were also involved in the George Floyd deadly use, would be arrested and the main accused charged for murder would be held only manslaughter.
no role at All in the Events, the Corona, however, seems to play pandemic – the United States is affected with almost 1.8 million confirmed cases and almost to 104,000 dead so hard like no other country in the world. “Social Distancing? Forget it, not in these protests,” says Stefan Simons. During the day, some protesters wore although masks – “but if in the case of a Demo, for everyone to just under two metres away from the Nearest stand, looks not so great.”
The mayor of Atlanta, Keisha Lance Bottoms, warned: “If you were with me last night at the protests, you should do in the coming week, maybe on COVID test.” There is, after all, still a pandemic in America, “the kill many black people”. Because of the Black work in the United States often in contact-intensive Jobs, and – as already mentioned – on average, a poorer access to the health system, the Corona distribution is only the latest indicator of inequality in U.S. society.
author: David Ehl, boxes potatoes: Swedish variant out of the oven with Parmesan – so-s PCP boxes of potatoes: a Swedish variant is out of the oven with Parmesan – so-s
*The post “”I can’t breathe”protests across the United States” is published by Deutsche Welle. Contact with the executives here.
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