Floyd’s last moments on Earth are a metaphor for how America sees and treats Black people.
How America treats people of color like Floyd and Mungin says a lot about how far we must still go as a nation.
Had law enforcement de-escalated in Floyd’s situation, had EMS cared enough to provide timely basic life support to Floyd, or had the hospital staff empathized with Mungin — in other words, seen them as fully human — the outcomes might have been different.
As a new father, I want my son to grow up in a world where he won’t face both the microaggressions and overt racism too many Black people experience today.
Black people’s premature deaths are the result of a systemic racism that underpays Black workers and then shuts the doors of opportunity for too many of us by underfunding our public schools, poisoning our water with lead, polluting the air we breathe, depriving us of healthy food options, criminalizing commonplace behaviors and refusing us access to quality health care everyone deserves.
