Still Failing? by Les May

ON 7 July last year Northern Voices published an article I wrote with the title ‘Why Black Lives Matter Will Fail’. In it I suggested that the proximate factor in the murder of George Floyd was that the USA has a militarised police force. I went on to say;

‘As of 30 June 2020 a total of 506 civilians were shot in the US, 105 of whom were black. In 2018, there were 996 fatal police shootings, and in 2019 this figure increased to 1,004. For comparison the rate of shootings per million of the population was: black 31, hispanic, 23, white 13, other 4. These figures speak for themselves. By comparison the average number of fatal police shootings per year in England and Wales in the 15 year period 2004/5 to 2018/9 was less than 3 in a population of about 60,000,000, that is about 0.05 per million.’

‘Faced with a fatality rate from police shooting which is 200 to 600 times higher than in the UK one might have thought that saving lives, black, brown and white, by demilitarising US police forces, would be central to any widespread response to the murder of George Floyd. Seemingly it isn’t.’

‘Instead of attempting to attain measurable objectives like improving police training and making officers accountable every time they use a firearm, the emphasis is on "racism", something for which there is no objective measure and having all the explanatory power of asking ‘how long is a piece of string?’ It’s a popular badge to display because it allows the wearer to get a warm glow of satisfaction from ‘calling out’ racists. If by chance the murder of George Floyd causes anyone to remember their humanity and dare to say they think all lives matter, you can call that racist too!’

Anyone viewing the recent video of the events just before a female officer drew her gun thinking she was drawing her Taser, cannot fail to notice the abrasive, bullying behaviour shown by the male officer. It’s the attitude of the police to people they are arresting not the colour of the skin of the victim 20 year old Daunte Wright which led to his death.

If you still think that ‘racism’ is at the root of the problem with policing in the USA try typing the words ‘73 year old woman dementia’ into your favourite search engine. (Startpage, DuckDuckGo, Google) You’ll be presented with more than two dozen reports and a YouTube video relating to the story of a 73 year old woman suffering from dementia being thrown to the ground, and cuffed so violently that she had her arm broken and her shoulder dislocated when she was arrested in Colorado.

After the killing of George Floyd a group calling itself ‘Black Lives Matter; Activist Coalition’ received donations totalling £1.2 million from a gullible British public.

Question; Are Age Concern, Dementia UK and Alzheimer’s Society about to be beneficiaries of similar largess? I think not!

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