George Floyd's Death and Racism Issue
Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was arrested by Minneapolis police on May 25, 2020 because he was considered buying cigarettes with counterfeit money.
The police named Derek Chauvin put his left knee between the head and neck floyd. Floyd asked for help and said he couldn't breathe and his body was no longer responsive after being in the position for six minutes. But Chauvin didn't stand for eight minutes 46 seconds. Floyd died one hour after the incident.
Floyd's death triggered a demonstration in various countries such as the United States, New Zealand and Australia. In Berlin, Germany, hundreds of demonstrators gathered two consecutive days, carrying boards or paper reading: "Silence is violent"; "Resistant of police accountability"; And "who did you call when the police killed?" While in the center of London, England, the demonstrators shouted: "No Justice!" or "no peace!"
Protests also emerged from Indonesia. Although there were no demonstrations on the streets, they voiced on social media. Among the many protests, some related to the situation of Papuans for years: they are also treated racist and repressed by officials.
Director of the Indonesian Amnesty International Usman Hamid stressed that "there was a resemblance" between the cases of George Floyd and Papuans in Indonesia: both of becoming victims of systemic racism. Because of the racist attitude nesting in the head of the apparatus, they used excessive strength even to deal with 'trivial' issues.
The case of death that befell George Floyd also reap protests from a number of world technology giant companies. The protest was carried out as a movement to reject racial inequality that befell colored residents in the United States.
The incident then made a technology company to voice their support for George and other black men. Twitter, for example, as a form of protest for the events of the racism, the official social networking platform changed his profile photo from the original blue bird to black.
Not only that, Twitter and TV channel companies, such as HBO, TBS, and TNT, contributed to changing their Twitter account with #BlackLivesMatter tags.
As for Netflix, Amazon Studios, Hulu, Starz, Quibi, and Twitch also voiced the action of anti-racism support through the announcements uploaded through their Twitter's official account.
While Instagram passes in a respective account uploading the #ShareBlackStories tag. Users are asked to share the experience of the injustice they experienced with the tag.