Racial inequality in the USA is a well-known topic, especially inequalities with the justice system and police officers being racially biased. On May 25, 2020, two police officers murdered an African American man named George Floyd. He was simply walking down the streets, doing nothing wrong. He was murdered solely because of his race and nothing else. A video of this happening quickly went viral everywhere on social media, sparking a new trending hashtag – #blacklivesmatter.
This tag quickly sparked protests around the country, and many were killed in the process because they protested equal rights and no racial profiling. Teargas and other fatal chemicals and methods were unleashed during these nationwide protests, which shows that these murders were no accidents and that the police were actively trying to injure or even kill people during the protests, using teargas, weapons, or even running people over in their cop cars.
This incident is one of many but it brought to many people’s attention, myself included, the severity of this issue and the fact that things like this still happen. Police officers falsely arrest or injure African Americans every day because they think that all people of that race are aggressive or criminals or some other horrible stereotype along those lines. I do not know what this is like whatsoever, but I do know that it should not be happening to anyone. Having to be scared of the people who swore to protect you, at routine traffic stops. Having them tell you to lower your voice even if you’re whispering, stop resisting even if you’re perfectly compliant. This needs to end.
There are many cases in the courtroom, where evidence was purposely ignored, overlooked, or even hidden, convicting innocent African Americans instead of looking at the facts. They look at whatever slight pieces of information indicate guilt and ignore the rest. Innocent people are left to rot in their prison cells because of their skin tones. To people of this race living in America, it is their daily lives. People who are not African American would never need to worry about these things because these cops or politicians have a target already who are taking the brunt of this for no reason or fault of their own at all.
Most cases of racial inequality are overlooked, but cases like that of George Floyd that get a lot of attention remind people that this still happens and that they should try and do something to fix it, which is one of the amazing parts about social media. Social media is helping bring people like racially biased police officers to justice more and more often. This makes it the best and easiest time to help and stop this. Hopefully, one day, racial profiling will be no more, but everyone needs to contribute if that is to ever happen. Simply spreading the word or educating those with racist opinions helps a lot because if the word isn’t spread and more people aren’t educated, there is no chance for racial profiling to end. Together we can stop this.