H. Fiction's Pub (Time To Talk)

All lives matter

We go from one controversial subject to another: this shall be some reflexion on the circumstances where the Black Lives Matter movement has appeared, as well as its reasons of being, consequences and the influence it seems to have developed over the US population's thought as a response to the problem of racism the country unfortunately has to face.

This time the analysis and exposition will be hard since I don't live in this country or belong to any of the minorities that may be affected by discrimination or any of the professions that are being attacked as a consequence. I don't want people to think I am trying to lecture anyone on a problem that is causing so much pain and impotence to innocent people from every race and position.

My exposition will be as objective and neutral as possible, always based on the data and news I research from some serious sources. If anyone thinks my opinion will be bland because of what I already explained, that view is as acceptable as any other that parts from a respectful dialogue. For now, this is what I have to say on the subject.

By the time I write these lines everyone from any country shall be aware of the death of George Floyd at the hands of a policeman in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the details of the tragedy, and the movement it has been born out of the enfuriated US society.

With your permission, this time I will divide the information in different parts, starting with the circumstances and facts that surrounded the act that started it all.

1. Who was George Floyd?

George Perry Floyd Jr was an Afro-American US citizen who was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina and was raised in a poor neighborhood named Bricks, in Houston, Texas. He stood out as a football and basketball player in his last years of high school, which earned him a university scholarship at the A&M University of Texas he would leave two years later. Herbert Mouton, who used to play with Floyd in the same team, described him as a tall guy who was always laughing and making jokes, and couldn't remember a time where he was involved in a fight.

After those two years as a college student, he returned to Texas and spent around a decade of arrests and incarcerations for crimes mainly related with drugs. This period included a ten months penalty in a state prison because of a 10 dollars drug transaction in 2004 and, 4 years later, other four years in prison after he declared himself guilty of an armed robbery crime. Once he went out of there, his daughter Gianna Floyd was born and Floyd started to spend a lot of time helping in Resurrection Houston, a church that used to deliver its services in a basketball court in the center of Cuney Homes. Patrick Ngwolo, pastor and lawyer of the church, described Floyd as an inspiration for the youngest members of the community.

Then, Floyd joined a Christian program which had dedicated some time to bring men from that district to Minnesota, where they would be offered services of rehabilitation for drug addiction and laboral reinsertion. In 2017 he began to work as a security guard at the Harbor Light Center of the Salvation Army, a provisional refuge for homeless people in the center of Minneapolis. He lost the job because of the Covid-19 pandemic and during his last weeks of life he recovered from the infection.

I decided to start with a summary of what is publicly known about this person. It might seem irrelevant, but I think it is important that right from the start we can first regard this person as a person, with virtues and flaws, a past, mistakes and life plans, just like anyone reading, and not merely as the face that appears in banners, graffiti, photographs and other media today.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/es/2020/06/09/espanol/mundo/George-Floyd-quien-es.html 

2.  May 26th