BLM movement notes

George Floyd movement:

• Minneapolis, America May 2020
• Started up the largest racial protest in the states but also reached global statuses
• Brutal death of George Floyd was on May 25th 2020
• Some of these countries had their own George Floyd — a Black person whose death by police brutality or racial violence created national outrage.
• Some protesters tore down and vandalized statues of slave traders and political leaders — even some who were considered national heroes.
• For example:  A statue of Winston Churchill in London's Parliament Square was spray-painted with a message calling him a "racist."
• Months after the protests, the government commissioned a report examining institutional racism in the U.K. But its release in March 2021 stunned activists because it simply rejected their claims of systemic problems.
• That same month, Parliament introduced a bill that would give police greater power to restrict protests. Ironically, it inspired a new round of protests with the rallying cry "Kill The Bill," that also called attention to the problem of violence against women.

Affects this movement had on other countries:

• New Zealand has a global reputation for peace and tolerance. But Black Lives Matter protesters there say that comes from a reluctance to speak directly about race and discrimination. George Floyd finally started those conversations.
• Protests coincided with New Zealand conducting a trial run of arming its police officers — something not routinely done there. The experiment was a response to the 2019 mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, which were committed by a white supremacist. But Black and Indigenous populations worried that armed police would only put them in danger.
• "We addressed the prime minister directly and the government and we said, 'We're not gonna stand for this, and we oppose this,'" said Mazou Q, a rapper who helped organize protests in Auckland. "Because we don't want to end up like the United States."
• People of African descent compromise less than 1% of New Zealand's population. But the protests brought Black protesters together with Indigenous Māori and Pacific Islanders, creating a movement for racial progress unlike anything the country had seen for years. One protest in Wellington drew more than 20,000 people.
• In France, protesters rallied against their nation's own history of racial injustice and police brutality, which has very different roots from the U.S.
• The thousands of protesters in Paris were joined by the family of Adama Traore, who died on his 24th birthday in 2016 under circumstances similar to Floyd. Three police officers put their weight on him to restrain him, and he could not be revived after being brought to a police station. There were no charges for his death.
• On May 22, 2020 — just three days before Floyd's killing — a young Black man named Anderson Arboleda was beaten to death by police for allegedly violating coronavirus curfew restrictions. Protesters soon marched to the U.S. embassy in Bogota, moved by the deaths of both Arboleda and Floyd.
• Then on September 9, 46-year-old Javier Ordóñez died after being brutalized in police custody — which was caught on video. In the footage, Ordóñez is heard saying "I am choking" and "Enough, no more, please" as officers kneel on him and use stun guns on him.
• During recent protests in Colombia over inequality and police brutality, local activist groups say at least 43 people have been killed by police. More than 2,900 cases of police brutality have also been reported.