EFF condemns the ruthless murder of George Floyd and police violence against African Americans in the US
30 May 2020
The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is saddened by the ruthless murder of George Floyd by racist police officials of Minneapolis in the United States of America. The murder of Floyd represents a deep tradition of racially inspired violence against African-Americans by law enforcement in the US dating as far back as the Jim Crow era.
On the 25th of May 2020. George Floyd was murdered by police officers of the state of Minneapolis. In a graphic video. Floyd is seen pleading for air as one officer restricts him with a knee placed firmly on his neck for several minutes. Floyd pleaded with these officers and is heard saying "I can't breathe". yet no mercy was shown. Outraged protesters from across the City have been engaged in mass demonstrations since the effective lynching of George Floyd. which represents a perverted culture of anti-black racism that is perpetuated by law enforcement in the US.
Floyd joins the likes of Sandra Bland. Michael Brown, Eric Garner and the 12-year-old Tamir Rice in a long list of black people who have been victims of unwarranted and racially inspired police killings. Although African-American males constitute only 2% of the population in the US. an unarmed African-American male is four times more likely to be shot than an unarmed white male.
The criminalisation of black people in the United States. who constitute a racial minority has a long history and is entrenched in the legislative, judicial and cultural fabric of the country. Black people exist under constant suspicion and are confronted with unwarranted and excessive violence from law enforcement because of the colour of their skin.
From the racial segregation and separate development of the Jim Crow era, the flooding of black communities with drugs in the Reagan era, to the deliberate program of mass incarceration of black youth in the profit-driven prison industrial complex, American society has organised itself to break the spirit and undermine the humanity of black people. It is these black people who built America on their backs. It is the same US whose prosperity is founded on slavery and anti-black racism. The murder of George Floyd is a product of this long history of racial prejudice.
We welcome the arrest of Derek Chauvin, the officer who pinned George Floyd to the floor with a knee to the throat, an excessive act of violence which ultimately resulted in Floyd's death. Racial violence in the US is a legitimated and accepted practice and the arrest only comes after the brave efforts of activists who rendered Minneapolis ungovernable in their demands for justice. It was prolonged inaction that inspired the rage of thousands of protesters in Minneapolis and across the country.
The rage of protesters against the lynching of George Floyd is a response to a persistently violent system that criminalises black people in the US and treats them with utter disdain and disregard. Donald Trump sits at the helm of this broken society and represents a modern-day slave master who would instruct the killing of any political dissent within his plantation. Instead of calling for justice for George Floyd and initiating structural reform to historically anti-black police and criminal justice system, Trump targets those who demand justice for Floyd, labelling them as "thugs" and deploying the army to "shoot" as a means of returning things to order.
The EFF condemns Donald Trump's public declaration of hate and violence and calls for speedy prosecution of the police officers implicated in the murder of George Floyd. We send our solidarity to the loved ones of George Floyd and all activists in the United States demanding change and an end to racial prejudice that dominates black people in the US and ends black lives at will.
We call on Cyril Ramaphosa to immediately convene a meeting with representatives of the US Embassy in South Africa to call for the recalling of the deployment of the military in Minneapolis against protesters. The US Embassy must call on Trump to seize his senseless actions should the US wish to maintain relations with South Africa, a nation which prides itself on a history of resistance against racial prejudice.
We further call on the African Union to instruct all member states to engage US embassies within their countries and instruct them to call for restraint by US government in handling protesters in Minneapolis and to call on Trump to seize from his genocidal deployment of the military against protestors. Africa must take a firm stance in defending black people in the diaspora from racially inspired violence which is carried out by a government which normalises the killing of black people.
These activists protest because, as echoed by George Floyd in his last moments, they cannot breathe. South Africa and the continent cannot maintain civil, diplomatic relations with a nation that deploys the military to shoot individuals who revolt against injustice.
Trump represents a degenerative element in global politics that must be called out and condemned whenever it rears its ugly head. His right-wing posture and thoughtless call for the murder of activists through the use of state machinery must be condemned by all progressive forces across the world.
Issued by Vuyani Pambo, National Spokesperson, EFF, 30 May 2020
