George Floyd’s Aunt and Activists Assess Changes in America’s Fight Against Racism and Police Brutality 3 Years After His Death

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American, died of asphyxiation under the knee of a white police officer. Filmed, his agony shocked the whole world, sparking mass protests against racism and police brutality.

Three years later, his aunt, a protester met by AFP in 2020 and one of the leaders of an organization dedicated to his memory, tell what has changed – or not.

Angela Harrelson

For George Floyd’s aunt, among the most notable facts after the death of her nephew is “the realization that systemic racism exists”.

“The conversation is different” at the national level, she told AFP in front of the “George Floyd crossroads”, the makeshift memorial erected where the forties was killed in Minneapolis.

“People are more open, especially white America, to talking about race relations,” she adds.

“People always ask me: do you think things are getting better? Yes,” she says.

She wants proof of this in the conviction of the police officers involved in the death of George Floyd, the reforms undertaken in Minneapolis within the police force, the programs on diversity in universities.

“Having said that, is there more to do? Yes. Will there be more deaths at the hands of the police? Yes, there will be,” she acknowledges.

This is why the work must continue.

“In 20, 50, 100 years, the goal is not to be holding up a sign that says + Black lives matter +. When we no longer have to say + Black lives matter +, we will know that we succeeded. That’s the goal”, she concludes.

Bethany Tamrat

AFP had met Bethany Tamrat, 22 today, at a protest in Minneapolis in 2020. At the time, she says, it was essential for her to participate in the movement. She wanted in particular “to be able to say + I saw it with my own eyes +”.

“At the time, in 2020, we had the impression that there was a shift (…). There was a lot of hope”, “we had the impression that a positive change was going to come from it “, she continues on the campus of her university.

“I can say without a shadow of a doubt that three years later, it was really a facade,” says the student. “It almost feels like we’ve taken five steps forward, fifteen steps back.”

The heated debates about racism awareness programs at school or university are a glaring example, she said. On May 15, almost a month after AFP’s interview with Bethany Tamrat, the governor of Florida signed laws to end diversity programs in public universities in his state.

“I don’t think people are ready for change,” she said.

Talking about diversity and inclusion within a company is one thing, “but sitting facing yourself, thinking about how you have contributed to racism, the personal biases you have against certain communities” in is another, she said.

Americans don’t even agree on their history and “we all have different versions of what happened in this country (…), so how do we change things?” She.

Maybe “by really listening to people affected” by racism, she says.

Jeanelle Austin

Co-founder and executive director of the “George Floyd Global Memorial”, Jeanelle Austin preserves the smallest object deposited where he was killed. Signs, flowers, little words, it’s about displaying them one day to make people “remember what happened in order to continue the quest for racial justice”.

For her, real change was possible, but “people don’t want it”.

“Because we have a system and an industry in our country that relies on black people being all the way down,” she pings into the space where the relics are carefully gathered and sorted.

The 2020 anti-racism protests, ‘people tearing down Confederate statues’, those who were hit ‘by rubber bullets’ and suffocated in tear gas, ‘all of this was not going to solve the problem of racism in the country if people were not willing to change,” she adds.

It must be made clear, she insists, that the way in which policing is carried out by the police must change.

For example, when Tyre Nichols, a young black man from Memphis, died in January after being beaten by African-American police officers, “people said (…) +this is a crime committed by Black against a black,” she said.

But “that’s what we’ve been trying to tell people for so long. It’s that police culture is police culture, regardless of skin color,” she said.

The maintenance of order is not the only one to be in question, according to her: it is also about the media, education, the health system.

And “most people have returned to their routine, as if nothing had happened,” she laments.

But “the routine is what caused the harm”, she says, while “we are in a permanent state of emergency”.