Exactly five years ago, the murder of the Black American George Floyd shook the Black Lives Matter movement awake. But protests against racism and excessive police violence did not lead to large-scale changes within the American police. And those are not likely to come for the time being.
What happened to George Floyd?
On Monday evening, May 25, 2020, the 46-year-old Floyd buys a pack of cigarettes. Employees suspect him of paying with a fake 20-dollar bill and call the police.
During the arrest, police officer Derek Chauvin presses his knee on Floyd’s neck for minutes, after which the Black American dies. Floyd’s last words “” go around the world and led to massive Black Lives Matter protests: people demonstrate against racism and excessive police violence.
Floyd’s death has indeed had some influence on the actions of the American police, experts tell NU.nl. A number of states and cities have passed laws reforming the police.
Think, for example, of banning the chokehold as a coercive measure, limiting house searches without knocking, and the mandatory use of body cams. Some states have also made it easier to fire or prosecute officers after misconduct.
Moreover, Floyd’s murder caused a change in the entire American culture and politics. “People got hope,” says America expert Manon Portos Minetti. “They really felt that something was going to change in the US. You saw that in many layers of society. People really tried to catch up.”
Dei Should Make People More Aware
This can be seen, for example, in the DEI initiatives that American companies and (police) organizations started. Those revolve around Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and are intended to make people more aware of racial sensitivities and injustice.
An example of such an initiative is the for officers, says Portos Minetti. “Agents are trained to profile less racially. That an agent does not immediately think: this black man has his hand in his pocket, he will have a gun,” she explains. “In this way, police organizations try to eliminate prejudices.”
Another initiative is to attract agents with different cultural backgrounds. “Because if you have more colored agents, you can also make better contacts with the different communities,” according to Portos Minetti is the idea. The entire Black Lives Matter movement was with all those changes “really a turning point” in the US.
But those changes remain limited to the state level and municipal level, especially in places where the Democrats are in power. In 2021, the Biden administration made another attempt to implement national reforms with the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. “That law would have imposed enormous changes on all police forces,” says America expert Andrew Gawthorpe.
The law was intended to nationally prohibit various forms of deadly violence, improve the accountability of officers and limit the so-called qualified immunity of officers. Because of the latter, police officers could often not be prosecuted for the use of deadly violence.
But it never got that far: the Republicans stopped the bill. Moreover, the Biden administration turned out to be “less aggressive in its attempts to force the police to change than some thought,” says Gawthorpe.
Hope for Equal vs Disappears
Floyd’s murder did create a moment of unity and a call for change in the United States, but those did not last long, experts say.
“You now see that the changes that made the US more equal or made people feel more equal in the past five years are being reversed,” says Portos Minetti. That has everything to do with President Trump’s anti-diversity policy.
“Trump and other Republicans say that DEI initiatives are just a way to punish white people,” Gawthorpe adds. “Trump is trying to ban them. Many companies now find it too expensive and too controversial and quietly stop them.”
Democrats are in a split
In addition, a hard counter-reaction from the Democrats remains absent. The increasing polarization in society and politics leads to the weakening of the party, says university lecturer Katy Hull. According to her, the Democrats have ended up in a split.
“Their views on police reform are too weak to keep BLM activists satisfied. At the same time, the party alienates some white Americans from the middle class by acknowledging that there is systematic racism within the American police.” And many people in the middle class have police officers in their family, she explains.
The hope for an equal US, which was still there in 2020, is disappearing. About three-quarters of Americans feel that Floyd’s murder has not led to changes for black Americans. “The Black Lives Matter movement is seen as a failure,” says Gawthorpe.
And with Trump’s policy, we are not back to square one, but we are even further away than we already were, Portos Minetti believes.
