'George Floyd Murder Gave Us Hope Things Would Change - But They've Changed for the Worse'
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Five years ago, an 8 minute 46 second video evidenced the public police execution of a Black man while he pleaded for his life, uttering the now achingly familiar cry, "I can't breathe". Despite what I recognise as our collective duty to bear witness, I could not watch George Floyd's murder then, and still can't now.
At the time, I was a politics teacher at a sixth form in Hackney, east London. It was lockdown, and all my students had seen the clip. They had an ability to digest violence in a way that is perhaps the refrain of youth, but for many - especially the Black boys - there was a more proximate and personal familiarity with police harassment that made the violence register as both spectacular and predictable.
Many at the time claimed that Black Lives Matter (BLM) was importing US issues into UK spaces, and that our policing history was entirely separate from the US experience, ignoring that the seeds of empire have a deep, perennial quality, and the US' racism problem is one we shaped.
'Half Measures Will Not Decolonise International Development'
Genuine anti-racist internationalism calls for much greater radicalism, writes Sunit Bagree
Sunit Bagree
The 2020 protests may have been prompted by a US based murder, but the causes it spoke to were distinctly domestic and home-grown.
The deaths of Chris Kaba and Oladeji Omishore, who died within three months of one another in 2022 at the hands of London's Metropolitan Police, are a painful reminder of this truth. So too are the countless statistics which highlight how disproportionately Black people are policed in this country, whether deaths in police custody, stop and search, or strip searches on young children like Child Q, who as a student in Hackney, could easily have been a student of mine.
The 2023 Casey Review followed a trend of government reports which found the police to be institutionally racist, and homophobic and misogynistic, which the Met's Commissioner accepted minus the term "institutional".
2023 also marked 30 years since Stephen Lawrence was murdered, after which UK policing was first labelled institutionally racist. BBC reports at the time highlighted the levels of police corruption involved in convicting his killers, most of whom still walk freely. I attended the memorial service to mark the 30th anniversary, alongside the Met Commissioner, who still denies the institutional nature of racism within UK policing.
The Chris Kaba Shooting and the Shocking Reality of Armed Policing in Modern Britain
Iain Overton reports on the statistics that reveal the police's institutional racial bias
Iain Overton
It is not a stretch to say that confidence in UK policing has reached an all time low. Sarah Everard's murder and the treatment of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry by police officers caused widespread mistrust amongst British people.
While conversations on defunding the police are smeared as 'woke' and associated with unhinged radicals, upcoming Runnymede Trust work shows that actually, a large proportion of British people support community based, policing alternatives - when they aren't asked these questions in sensationalist ways.
There are alternative paths that can be taken, but in the past five years, successive governments have remained in a stale and repressive political space; they have imposed the most dangerous legislative agenda for people of colour in generations.
How the Media 'Justified' the Shooting of Chris Kaba and then 'Conducted a Merciless Autopsy' on his Life
The headlines about Chris Kaba tell us more about the society and media in this country than his killing
Mathilda Mallinson and Helena Wadia
Taken together, legislation including the 2022 P...
For digital and print editions, packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, features, and columns….
SUBSCRIBE
Five years ago, an 8 minute 46 second video evidenced the public police execution of a Black man while he pleaded for his life, uttering the now achingly familiar cry, "I can't breathe". Despite what I recognise as our collective duty to bear witness, I could not watch George Floyd's murder then, and still can't now.
At the time, I was a politics teacher at a sixth form in Hackney, east London. It was lockdown, and all my students had seen the clip. They had an ability to digest violence in a way that is perhaps the refrain of youth, but for many - especially the Black boys - there was a more proximate and personal familiarity with police harassment that made the violence register as both spectacular and predictable.
Many at the time claimed that Black Lives Matter (BLM) was importing US issues into UK spaces, and that our policing history was entirely separate from the US experience, ignoring that the seeds of empire have a deep, perennial quality, and the US' racism problem is one we shaped.
'Half Measures Will Not Decolonise International Development'
Genuine anti-racist internationalism calls for much greater radicalism, writes Sunit Bagree
Sunit Bagree
The 2020 protests may have been prompted by a US based murder, but the causes it spoke to were distinctly domestic and home-grown.
The deaths of Chris Kaba and Oladeji Omishore, who died within three months of one another in 2022 at the hands of London's Metropolitan Police, are a painful reminder of this truth. So too are the countless statistics which highlight how disproportionately Black people are policed in this country, whether deaths in police custody, stop and search, or strip searches on young children like Child Q, who as a student in Hackney, could easily have been a student of mine.
The 2023 Casey Review followed a trend of government reports which found the police to be institutionally racist, and homophobic and misogynistic, which the Met's Commissioner accepted minus the term "institutional".
2023 also marked 30 years since Stephen Lawrence was murdered, after which UK policing was first labelled institutionally racist. BBC reports at the time highlighted the levels of police corruption involved in convicting his killers, most of whom still walk freely. I attended the memorial service to mark the 30th anniversary, alongside the Met Commissioner, who still denies the institutional nature of racism within UK policing.
The Chris Kaba Shooting and the Shocking Reality of Armed Policing in Modern Britain
Iain Overton reports on the statistics that reveal the police's institutional racial bias
Iain Overton
It is not a stretch to say that confidence in UK policing has reached an all time low. Sarah Everard's murder and the treatment of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry by police officers caused widespread mistrust amongst British people.
While conversations on defunding the police are smeared as 'woke' and associated with unhinged radicals, upcoming Runnymede Trust work shows that actually, a large proportion of British people support community based, policing alternatives - when they aren't asked these questions in sensationalist ways.
There are alternative paths that can be taken, but in the past five years, successive governments have remained in a stale and repressive political space; they have imposed the most dangerous legislative agenda for people of colour in generations.
How the Media 'Justified' the Shooting of Chris Kaba and then 'Conducted a Merciless Autopsy' on his Life
The headlines about Chris Kaba tell us more about the society and media in this country than his killing
Mathilda Mallinson and Helena Wadia
Taken together, legislation including the 2022 P...
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