Koon Yew Yin 31 May 2020
Demonstrations erupted in cities across the U.S. in response to the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in the hands of Minneapolis police.
Derek Chauvin, the police officer filmed kneeling on Floyd’s neck, was arrested Friday and charged with murder and manslaughter. The anger in response to Floyd’s killing descended into rioting and looting in several cities.
Atlanta, Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Columbus, Pittsburgh, Denver, Salt Lake City, Nashville and Minneapolis among others have imposed curfews as they brace for more unrest Saturday night into Sunday morning.
The governors of Minnesota, Georgia, Ohio, Washington and Kentucky have mobilized their state National Guards. President Donald Trump and the Pentagon have said they stand ready to provide federal forces to Minnesota if requested to quell unrest.
I have excerpted a bit of the book by Edward Baptist for you to know the how the blacks migrated to America 400 years ago and how they were treated. It looks like the way the blacks were treated 400 years ago have not changed.
Edward Baptist argues in his new book, “The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism,” that the forced migration and subsequent harsh treatment of slaves in the cotton fields was integral to establishing the United States as a world economic power.
After that first 1619 shipload, some 100,000 more enslaved Africans would sail upriver past Old Point Comfort. Lying in chains in the holds of slave ships, they could not see the land until they were brought up on deck to be sold. After the legal Atlantic slave trade to the United States ended in 1807, hundreds of thousands more enslaved people passed the point. Now they were going the other way, boarding ships at Richmond, the biggest eastern centre of the internal slave trade, to go by sea to the Mississippi Valley.
Slave Uprisings: The 1712 revolt was an uprising in New York City. There were 23 African American slaves. In the revolt nine whites were shot, stabbed, or beaten to death and six were injured. Unlike the plantations in the South, New York City was a perfect place for African Americans to form a conspiracy. Slaves lived next to each other, which made it easy for them to communicate with each other. Seventy blacks were put in jail, six committed suicide, 27 were put on trial of which 21 were burned to death.
After 400 years, the blacks are still being treated so unfairly in America.
Covid 19 pandemic
Currently due to Covid 19 pandemic, the US has the most cases, 1.82 million in the world and 105,557 deaths. These two figures are increasing at an alarming rate. The spike in joblessness follows record-breaking unemployment claims week after week since mid-March, including Thursday’s report that 3.2 million Americans applied for unemployment insurance benefits last week. Most of the blacks are unemployed.
Obviously, President Trump is not capable to resolve the Covid 19 pandemic, unemployment and the current riots in most of the American cities.
