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LEHIGH VALLEY WEATHER

Another View

As America is trying to reopen from the coronavirus pandemic, a new battle has erupted over the death of 46-year-old George Floyd, a black man from Minneapolis.

Last week, I watched in horror on social media and news broadcasts as former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, 44, placed his knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds as Floyd cried out, “I can’t breathe,” and asked for his mother before taking his last breath and dying.

In frustration over his death, protesters and rioters have taken to cities all across the country including Minneapolis, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Houston and Philadelphia, setting police cars and buildings on fire and looting businesses in protest of Chauvin, who is white, killing Floyd.

The protests, however, are about more than police brutality; they are about racism and equal rights for individuals of different races.

Floyd’s death is not the only incident Americans watched last week on social media that had a racial undertone to it.

On May 25, Christian Cooper, a black man, was bird-watching when he encountered Amy Cooper, a white woman walking her dog in Central Park, New York City, N.Y.

He asked her to leash her dog. Then she called the police and reported the man was threatening her and her dog.

In early May, news reports told of two white men, Greg and Travis McMichael, who allegedly shot and killed Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man, who was jogging in Brunswick, Ga., almost two months earlier.

Merriam-Webster defines racism as a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

As a white woman, I will never fully understand the heartache and pain a black person experiences on a daily basis, but I do know racism is wrong.

When you see how racism affects young children, such as Keedron Bryant, 12, of Jacksonville, Fla., it is sad and heartbreaking.

Keedron sang a song on social media about the Minneapolis killing - “I’m a young black man doing all that I can to stand. Oh, but when I look around and I see what’s being done to my kind every day, I’m being hunted as prey. My people don’t want no trouble. We’ve had enough struggle. I just want to live. God protect me. I just want to live. I just want to live.”

Two years ago, Lehigh Valley was the center of its own racial protest after former South Whitehall police officer Jonathan Roselle, a white man, shot and killed Joseph Santos, a 44-year-old Latino man from Hasbrouck Heights, N.J., July 28, 2018, near Dorney Park.

No matter what skin color an individual has, all individuals matter - we are all human.

According to Matthew 7:1-2 in the Bible, “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.”

And according to the last line in the Pledge of Allegiance, “One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all,” everyone is entitled to the same equal rights.

Racism and unequal rights for individuals of different races must stop. Too many individuals have been killed.

Unless white individuals change their thinking about individuals of different races, Floyd and Arbery will not be the last men killed in America because of racism.

Susan Bryant

editorial assistant

Parkland Press

Northwestern Press