George Floyd -United States of America- (1974-2020)
If his life was as anonymous as that of a modest African-American caught up in the process of the “struggle for life”, the death of George Floyd, under the torture of a white policeman, on 25 May 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota (USA), was a real telluric shock that spared no part of the world. Born in Fayettville, North Carolina, George Floyd grew up in Houston, Texas, in the black Third Ward ghetto. Like all young black people of his generation in the United States, school and sport were seen as a social ladder.
So he tried his hand at basketball from primary school with some success that earned him the nickname of “gentle giant” from his friends. He also flirted with song by joining a band called “Presidential Playas”. He even contributed to an album in 2003. In the face of life’s difficulties, he quickly gave up his sporting and artistic ambitions and, like many African-Americans, he ventured into the collection of odd jobs for survival as the American system offers to the poor to keep the reproduction of dominant capitalism. Faced with the rigours of life, he quickly succumbed to the endemic delinquency of African-Americans, which led to various convictions, including a five-year sentence in 2009 in Houston. Upon his release from prison in 2014, he resolved to settle down and moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota. As a truck driver and security guard, he took on many odd jobs hoping to take care of his mother and two children. But it was fate that brought him into contact with Derek Chauvin, a policeman who put his racist ideology above his duty of defence and security. On May 25, 2020, during a routine check in Minneapolis, Derek Chauvin tortured him to death despite his distress call “I can’t breathe” repeated for nearly nine minutes. His death sounded like the last straw for many African-Americans, American Democrats of all origins and those from all over the world. Demonstrations broke out in most US cities, some of which were followed by large-scale riots. As the trial of police brutality in the US and around the world, “I can’t breathe” was taken up by the movement of supporters of the slogan “Black lives Matters” adopted since the death in identical conditions of another African-American, Eric Garnier, in 2014. The death of Floyd George was a bright spot in social, political and economic relations in the US and around the world. The death of George Floyd served to accelerate the process of assessing the consequences of different colonial systems in terms of race and economic relations. His executioner Chauvin has just been released on bail.
