George Floyd was a 46-year-old black American man who was unapologetically murdered by Minneapolis police last week. Most Americans by now have seen the original video of former officer Derek Chauvin applying his full body weight to George Floyd’s neck while 3 additional officers positioned themselves on top of Floyd’s back and torso, leading to Floyd’s quick suffocation and death (ruled a homicide by autopsy reports). Especially chilling to hear in this rare video capture are the pained and desperate pleas made by Floyd, begging officers to let him breathe—a sentiment that was fiercely echoed by agitated bystanders shocked at the murder they were witnessing.
This type of racist policing is a violation of international human rights, and should be indisputably condemned by US institutions. Once again, we are faced with the crushing reality that the United States police institutions are thoroughly corrupt and operate in a predatory nature towards black Americans and other individuals of color.
As Palestinian Americans, it is our responsibility to acknowledge the daily reality that black Americans experience in the United States on account of specific racial targeting, systemic oppression, and a corrupt, unchecked police force.
We must advocate for the end of police brutality towards the black community as passionately as we advocate for the human rights of those living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The same imperial force that targets Arabs overseas has militarized the police in black communities here in the US—black Americans are often subjected to similar surveillance, repression, and criminalization that Arabs experience in Palestine and other parts of the colonized Arab world.
We stand in solidarity with George Floyd, his family, and the entire Black Lives Matter movement. We demand the appropriate prosecution of every officer involved in this murder, and we call for an end to police violence against black communities and those who protest these injustices.
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" – Martin Luther King Jr.
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