Black Lives Matter is a major issue facing the world: Racism June 14, 2020
George Floyd is on the ground with a police officer's knee against his throat for nine minutes. His last words were, "I can't breathe." This incident occurred in Minneapolis USA. George Floyd is dead and the protests, peaceful and destructive, are happening around the world.
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| Nelson Mandela peacefully restored South Africa's Democracy |
These words are James Baldwin's on racial clashes, “…it is ultimately fatal to create too many victims. The victor can do nothing with these victims, for they do not belong to him…They belong to the people he is fighting. The people know this, and as inexorably as the roll call — the honor roll — of victims expands, so does their will become inexorable: they resolve that these dead, their brethren, shall not have died in vain. When this point is reached, however long the battle may go on, the victor can never be the victor: on the contrary, all his energies, his entire life are bound up in a terror he cannot articulate, a mystery he cannot read, a battle he cannot win — he has simply become the prisoner of the people he thought to cow, chain, or murder into submission.”
George Floyd and many other men and women stand as Baldwin's victims when racial conflicts build and fester in all of society.
Nelson Mandela was featured in a Globe and Mail article June 18, 2020 on the occasion of his visit to Canada on June 18, 1990 where he was given the privilege of speaking in Canada's House of Commons. ""He had spent 27 years in prison for conspiring to overthrow the apartheid government of South Africa. On Feb. 11, he finally walked out of prison a free man and in a speech before a massive crowd of supporters declared: “I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom.” Despite all those years of incarceration, Mandela was not bitter. Instead, he focused on rebuilding a South Africa free of institutionalized racial discrimination. Four months later on this date, Mandela visited Canada – a country that had steadfastly supported sanctions against the white government. Then-prime minister Brian Mulroney gave the former political prisoner the privilege (as a non-head of state) to speak from the floor of the House of Commons where Mandela thanked Canadians for having “reached out across the seas … to the rebels, the fugitives, and the prisoners” of the anti-apartheid regime. Four years later, Mandela, then 75, became the country’s first Black president. He visited Canada twice more, and each time, was greeted by throngs who wanted to be near the man who had become a global symbol of peace, forgiveness and reconciliation.""
In 2020 around the world, especially in the USA White Privilege and Systemic Racism plays an ever-growing part in our daily affairs. Talk, more talk and protests, violent as well as peaceful, are carried on the News of the Day. During the last century the issues have improved for all its' citizens but still we ask how can this be in the year 2020? I say:
"When, in the fullness of time all races of children while playing, learning, and growing together into married couples with interracial children, will we begin to see the platitudes of white privilege and systemic racism lessen until it eventually disappears. Changing attitudes and enough time will bring this crippling disease to society’s knees."
George Floyd and many other men and women stand as Baldwin's victims when racial conflicts build and fester in all of society.
Nelson Mandela was featured in a Globe and Mail article June 18, 2020 on the occasion of his visit to Canada on June 18, 1990 where he was given the privilege of speaking in Canada's House of Commons. ""He had spent 27 years in prison for conspiring to overthrow the apartheid government of South Africa. On Feb. 11, he finally walked out of prison a free man and in a speech before a massive crowd of supporters declared: “I greet you all in the name of peace, democracy and freedom.” Despite all those years of incarceration, Mandela was not bitter. Instead, he focused on rebuilding a South Africa free of institutionalized racial discrimination. Four months later on this date, Mandela visited Canada – a country that had steadfastly supported sanctions against the white government. Then-prime minister Brian Mulroney gave the former political prisoner the privilege (as a non-head of state) to speak from the floor of the House of Commons where Mandela thanked Canadians for having “reached out across the seas … to the rebels, the fugitives, and the prisoners” of the anti-apartheid regime. Four years later, Mandela, then 75, became the country’s first Black president. He visited Canada twice more, and each time, was greeted by throngs who wanted to be near the man who had become a global symbol of peace, forgiveness and reconciliation.""
In 2020 around the world, especially in the USA White Privilege and Systemic Racism plays an ever-growing part in our daily affairs. Talk, more talk and protests, violent as well as peaceful, are carried on the News of the Day. During the last century the issues have improved for all its' citizens but still we ask how can this be in the year 2020? I say:
"When, in the fullness of time all races of children while playing, learning, and growing together into married couples with interracial children, will we begin to see the platitudes of white privilege and systemic racism lessen until it eventually disappears. Changing attitudes and enough time will bring this crippling disease to society’s knees."
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