Actually it was my own fault. Like others, I took a seat on the bridge, where it was clearly visible clashes of police and soldiers in full battle dress with protesters throwing bottles at them.
At eight o’clock in Minneapolis it’s curfew, and police through a megaphone announced that if the protesters do not quickly disperse, arrest ‘ em. After that, all hell broke loose.
In just a few seconds everything just exploded.
The police began to disperse the crowd with tear gas, and soon the street was filled with grey-yellow smoke, and the demonstrators ran away, to wash the eyes brought with them milk — it really helps against burning.
I myself did not notice that the bridge behind me at the same time flooded with cops in full gear. Turning around, I found that ten meters runs the officer instructed me weapons.
The body I had a shiver, and the tips of his fingers stabbed: I thought that was my end. I instinctively raised my hands up, and he ran past, and I rushed to my car, sat in it and at full speed drove away.
As already mentioned, it was my own fault. It was already after eight, came the curfew, and the officer in that whole mess, clubs, tear gas, darkness, among the streams of aggression just could not distinguish me from the demonstrator.
But he certainly could see that I was white and not black. Maybe it played no role, but later I could not get rid of the thought that everything might have ended differently if I was black.
Isn’t that why we all came there?
Is it because many police in the US more aggressively respond to blacks than whites?
Is it because 46-year-old former truck driver George Floyd (Floyd George), which is eight minutes and forty-six seconds was lying on the pavement, pressed the knee of a white officer was black?
Is it because against George Floyd, who was already in handcuffs, it is unlikely it would use excessive violence if he was white?
Tens of thousands of protesters in the U.S. don’t doubt it. This is not the first case when a white police officer abusing official position, and the Negro in the result dies.
This time the story has even caught on video. Everything was recorded to passers-by, and because the whole world knows what lying on the ground, almost strangled George Floyd saying: “I can’t breathe”.
People are angry. They are marching the streets and chanting: “don’t kill us”! And they have not ceased to protest even after police tonight used tear gas.
Over the weekend, the anger from Minneapolis, has spread to almost all the major cities of the United States.
In some places the demonstrations are peaceful, but in many places on Friday and Saturday, they escalated into violence and a riot. The Rob stores, police stations, smashed, buildings set on fire.
Here in Minneapolis not only burned a police station, but a number of other buildings on the street now hit in the nose suffocating smoke.
In the night on Sunday in 25 cities — including Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, Chicago and Philadelphia imposed a curfew, and at least eight States have requested the assistance of the National guard.
Despite the riots and looting, which, as pointed out by many, are irrelevant to the struggle for the rights of black people, the mayor of new York bill de Blasio (Bill de Blasio) understands the anger.
“Structural racism haunts of coloured life. All this took such proportions because of decades of injustice, — he said. I know enough to say that blacks suffer from racism every day. We need to fix the situation.”
According to bill de Blasio about structural racism bring me back to thinking about that, is it because I’m so easily escaped during the incident on Saturday evening that was white and not black.
In any case, it is evident that most African Americans I’ve interviewed, tell scary stories of harassment and abuse or fear them to be, when they for some reason overlap with the police or even just out of the house.
Out of fear to fall into the hands of the police without any legal grounds they define for themselves rules of conduct, which whites in the United States do not typically follow. They do not believe that they will be treated fairly, and this only exacerbates the fear.
For example, 27-year-old Terence, whom I met during the protests in Minneapolis on Friday evening. This is a good guy who in his spare time communicating with blacks, young people, urging them to get an education.
Terence said that never feels safe, if there are white cops. Although in reality everything has to be exactly the opposite. You need to feel confident that if there is law enforcement.
“I stayed away from police out of fear of how they would to anything not latched until the last try not to call. And now the case with George Floyd just confirmed that they are ready to kill the man on the street in broad daylight. It even took video,” he says.
Earlier I spoke with a young black Francesca Lee-Davis (Francesca Leigh-Davis). Her husband in Richmond, Virginia, bodyshops and spouse earn a pretty good living at repairing and selling cars.
But when she showed me the poor black neighborhoods of Richmond, we went there on the little grey “Nissan”, although she prefers to drive a “Jaguar”. However, citing the example of discriminatory attitudes towards black than white, she told me that she prefers to leave the Jaguar at home: she had no more strength to ride it.
“When I’m driving the Jag, I was constantly stopped by the police. And they always ask whose car that is. I distinguish along racial lines. Stop because I suspect that the car was stolen. They can’t imagine that a black woman can be a Jaguar”.
Or, as Saturday night one of the protesters summed it up for CNN: “to Be black is a crime”.
And since many blacks in USA have the feeling that they are accused of crimes solely because of skin color, the protests raged in many American cities on Saturday night.
Only in the Minnesota national guard was sent on Saturday 10,8 thousand soldiers in an attempt to stop the rebellion in the largest city of the state of Minneapolis. Tear gas again forced the demonstrators to retreat.
I myself, however, this time I decided not to go to the front. Sometimes they actually learn from their mistakes.
