In America’s racial morality play, the brutal officer with a badge using disproportionate and deadly force on an unarmed black man is a familiar character. The interaction in Central Park, on the other hand, which was soon eclipsed by the response to Floyd’s death, is in many ways more challenging. But it is precisely because it is emblematic of a broader, systemic issue that many could be galvanized around the incident to such effect.

The precise alchemy that makes his death, as opposed to others, so totemic is unclear. His death at the hands of police does not contradict what we think and know about relations between African Americans and the police, but confirms them. The sight of Floyd being killed in real time is shocking but news of it is not. “The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.” “The way we see things is affected by what we know and what we believe,” wrote John Berger in Ways of Seeing. Those videos, too, went viral, sparking global antiracist protests and rebellions across the country in support of Black Lives Matter.

Several people caught the incident on their cameras. Police officer Derek Chauvin, forty-four, would then place his knee on Floyd’s neck for over eight minutes. Over the next twenty minutes, they would pull their gun on him, pull him out of his car, and throw him to the ground. The police came seven minutes later to arrest Floyd.

An employee called the police to tell them she suspected the note was counterfeit. Thirteen hours later, and 1,200 miles away, at a Minneapolis convenience store called Cup Foods, George Floyd, forty-four, paid for a packet of cigarettes with a $20 note. In the midst of a global pandemic, both posts went viral. He’s recording me and threatening me and my dog.” Becoming increasingly shrill, she would go on to mention that he was African American two more times.Ĭhristian posted the video on Facebook his sister, Melody, posted it on Twitter. Once through to emergency services she tells the dispatcher: “There’s a man. “I’m going to call the cops and tell them there’s an African American man threatening my life,” she continued. The dog’s owner, Amy Cooper (no relation), forty, refused. Dogs are not allowed off a leash in the Ramble and Christian asked the owner to observe the rules. Shortly before 8 AM on May 25, 2020, Christian Cooper, fifty-seven, was birdwatching in the Ramble-a semi-wild part of New York’s Central Park-when a cocker spaniel bounded into view pursued by its owner loudly calling for him.

Richard wright native