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Members of Black Lives Matter protest on the fifth anniversary of the death of Eric Garner, a day after federal prosecutors announced their decision not to prosecute NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo or other officers for charges related to his death, in New York, U.S., July 17, 2019.
Eric Garner’s ‘I Can’t Breathe’ and its echo through time
Tomorrow marks 10 years since the tragic death of Eric Garner at the hands of police violence. His death sparked mass protests in New York City and other US cities, significantly influencing the Black Lives Matter movement.
On July 17, 2014, in Staten Island, New York, police officers approached Garner, a Black man, for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes. The situation escalated as police moved to arrest him. Officer Daniel Pantaleo placed Garner in a chokehold – violating NYPD policy – which ultimately led to Garner’s death.
Footage of the incident, which a bystander captured on a cellphone, showed Garner repeatedly stating, “I can’t breathe.” These words became a rallying cry against police brutality. Pantaleo was not charged with a crime, which led to outrage in New York City, but he was ultimately fired from the force in 2019 after a departmental trial.
In June 2020, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomosigned a law named after Garner that outlawed the use of police chokeholds. This came shortly after the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a white police officer in Minneapolis knelt on his neck. Bystanders captured video of the fatal incident, during which Floyd could be heard saying the same three words Garner used: “I can’t breathe.”
Floyd’s death sparked the largest racial justice protests in the US since the Civil Rights Movement. The demonstrations and the concerns that galvanized them provided a boost to Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, as voters believed Democrats would be more likely to take steps to address racial injustice.
Why do Black people feel "erased" from American history?
Growing up, New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones only learned a little about the plight of Black people in America during Black History Month. The Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the 1619 Project studied some usual suspects such as Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglass, and then discussed slavery to cover the Civil War.
But then Black people like herself, she says, vanish from the narrative until the civil rights movement.
“There was no really larger understanding of how Black Americans fit into the larger story of America. And there certainly wasn't the teaching of Black people as actors in the American story."
For Hannah-Jones, this explains why white Americans don't know what it means "to be erased" from US history as well as broader American culture and literature.
"That erasure is really demeaning, and it's really powerful.”
Watch this episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: Counter narrative: Black Americans, the 1619 Project, and Nikole Hannah-Jones
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Why are young people fed up in Nigeria?
Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, has been rocked for two weeks by major unrest, as youth-led groups have hit the streets to protest police brutality and the lack of jobs. The demonstrations caught authorities by surprise — could they herald a broader and more permanent shift in which young Nigerians demand a bigger say in shaping their country's future?
#EndSARS. The rallies began on October 5 in Edo and Delta states over a viral video of a man being beaten to death by alleged members of the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), and soon spread to Lagos, the country's largest city and economic hub. Hundreds of activists demanded the government disband the famously trigger-happy federal police unit, accused of hundreds of extrajudicial killings since it was established in 1992.
Just days later, the protests ballooned to tens of thousands of people and expanded to other cities and the capital, Abuja. The hashtag #EndSARS became immensely popular on social media and captured global attention from the Nigerian diaspora in Europe and the Americas, as well as celebrities and influencers in the US, including Black Lives Matter.
Faced with mounting pressure, President Muhammadu Buhari — a former general who led a military junta that ruled Nigeria in the early 1980s but was elected as a civilian in 2015 — agreed to disband SARS. But rather than calm the streets, it has energized a new generation of protesters whose grievances go well beyond police brutality alone.
Jobless youth. Although Nigeria is one of the world's top oil producers, corruption and economic mismanagement have squandered that wealth for decades. The economic impact of COVID-19 has only made things worse, as the oil sector — which accounts for 60 percent of government revenues and is the key to any economic recovery — is suffering a pandemic-fueled global slump in commodity prices.
The current economic crisis has hit the youth particularly hard, with a whopping 63 percent of Nigerians under 30 now jobless or underemployed, eight percentage points higher than the overall working-age population. (It's hard to know what the youth labor market looked like immediately before the pandemic, since the last statistics are from the third quarter of 2018).
A generational shift in the making. More than half of Nigeria's 206 million people are under 30, and the median age is 18.4. But young Nigerians have been politically disengaged for generations in a country where turnout for national elections rarely exceeds 40 percent.
But if the current protests do boost youth voter engagement, there could be big consequences down the line. Young Nigerians tend to favor action on economic and social justice instead of the traditional GDP growth and security issues that establishment politicians now focus on.
Ahead of the 2023 general election, any party that can tap into this politically dormant giant constituency would be very competitive in ways that could fundamentally change Nigerian politics.
What happens next? As the protests continue despite a curfew in Lagos and under the watchful eye of anti-riot police, the security forces are getting anxious. Activists have accused the cops of deploying armed thugs to break them up, while the army has already threatened to intervene. Whether or not there's a crackdown, young Nigerians have thrown down the gauntlet — and they will be a political force to be reckoned with sooner than you think.Is the Kenosha shooting a turning point for the US on race?
Just twelve weeks after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police galvanized a racial justice movement across the US — and the globe — the city of Kenosha in the US state of Wisconsin is aflame after protesters took to the streets to demand justice for Jacob Blake, a Black man shot in the back this week by a white police officer.
How are current protests playing out — and how has public and political sentiment shifted since demonstrations against police brutality erupted across the nation in late May?
Vigilante violence. While bouts of violence characterized some riots earlier this summer, this week's clashes in Wisconsin swiftly became more sinister in nature when a 17-year old white male — a former member of a youth police cadet program with an intense affinity for guns — opened fire at protesters, killing two people and seriously injuring a third.
He was arrested a day later by local police, but one influential right-wing media superstar's characterization of the shooter as a dutiful citizen who had no choice but to take the law into his own hands is a dangerous justification for... murder.
Professional athletes go deeper. After the Floyd killing, many prominent sportsmen and women spoke out against systemic racism, but this week many athletes with massive followings and multi-million dollar sponsorship deals went further in showing solidarity with the movement for racial justice.
In an unprecedented step, teams from the National Basketball Association refused to take the court in playoff games scheduled for Wednesday night in protest, as did the Women's National Basketball Association. Several Major League Baseball teams quickly followed suit, joining strikes in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. Protests of this kind in American baseball — still a largely white-dominated sport with a largely conservative culture — are something new.
Meanwhile, the US Tennis Association — which governs a notably white sport itself — suspended all games Thursday after Naomi Osaka, the world's highest-paid female athlete and a Black woman, said she was pulling out of a tournament in New York (she opted back in the following day).
Whether these gestures can move the needle on awareness or exacerbate polarization is unclear. But the refusal of athletes to play the game — and the potential personal and professional hit they could take as a result — marks a new phase of engagement by some of the country's most influential public figures.
The looming election. One key difference between now and the aftermath of the Floyd killing is the proximity of the US election, which is set to take place on November 3.
With Kenosha as a backdrop, Joe Biden and the Democrats are emphasizing the enduring problems of racial inequality and police brutality in the US. Republicans, on the other hand, have focused on looting and urban chaos, claiming that Democrat-run cities like Atlanta, Minneapolis, New York City, and Kenosha have allowed their streets to descend into lawlessness. Speaking at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence warned starkly that "law and order is on the ballot."
In a worrying sign for Democrats, there are already signs that the Trump campaign's messaging about Democrat-induced unrest might be resonating with at least some voters in the important swing state of Wisconsin, where Blake was shot. Polling also shows that national support for the Black Lives Matter movement might be waning.
If that trend continues, Joe Biden — sponsor of the fateful 1994 Crime Bill — and his running mate, former California Attorney General Kamala Harris, may soon have to make a calculation about whether to front their own "law and order" credentials, even at the cost of alienating progressives or Black voters who might be turned off by those messages.
As the presidential race hits the homestretch in the weeks ahead, the Blake shooting and subsequent protests are setting the parameters for a political clash over racial justice and policing in which voters will be asked to make a (largely false) choice between "racial justice" and "law and order." Who will win?
Australia court prohibits planned Black Lives Matter protest
SYDNEY (BLOOMBERG) - The Supreme Court in Australia's New South Wales state ruled against a plan to hold a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Sydney this week, citing concerns over the potential spread of the coronavirus.
Podcast: Breathing While Black with WaPo's Karen Attiah
Listen: In the latest episode of GZERO World, Ian Bremmer explores international reaction to the murder of George Floyd and global protests against police brutality and racism. Karen Attiah, Global Opinions Editor of The Washington Post, explains her view that, on issues of race and inequality, the U.S. is a "developing country," and while this moment of uprising offers hope for real change there is still much work to be done. Attiah discusses protestors taking to the streets despite fears of the COVID pandemic, and the centuries-long struggle black Americans have faced on the road to equality. Attiah also reflects on the 2018 murder of her Washington Post colleague Jamal Khashoggi, killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Breathing while Black: WaPo's Karen Attiah on racial injustice
In the latest episode of GZERO World, Ian Bremmer explores international reaction to the murder of George Floyd and global protests against police brutality and racism. Karen Attiah, Global Opinions Editor of The Washington Post, explains her view that, on issues of race and inequality, the U.S. is a "developing country," and while this moment of uprising offers hope for real change there is still much work to be done.
Attiah discusses protesters taking to the streets despite fears of the COVID pandemic, and the centuries-long struggle black Americans have faced on the road to equality. Attiah also reflects on the 2018 murder of her Washington Post colleague Jamal Khashoggi, killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
- US global reputation a year after George Floyd's murder; EU sanctions against Belarus; Olympics outlook - GZERO Media ›
- US global reputation a year after George Floyd's murder; EU sanctions against Belarus; Olympics outlook - GZERO Media ›
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Washington Post’s Karen Attiah: U.S. a “developing country” on race, equality
In a personal and insightful interview with GZERO World host Ian Bremmer, Washington Post Global Opinion Editor Karen Attiah discusses this charged moment of unrest in America, and her own family's experiences with racism. Attiah, the daughter of Ghanaian immigrants, describes her father's journey from learning of Emmett Till's murder as a young boy to being cautious of police officers in Texas, despite the fact he was a successful doctor.
The complete interview is part of the latest episode of GZERO World, and begins airing today, Friday, June 19, nationally on public television stations. Check local listings and visit gzeromedia.com for more.