London, 2 June 2020 – Protesters around the world are saying we can no longer be bystanders, staying put and silent. Turning a blind eye to racism is no longer an option after George Floyd has been brutally murdered.

Whether in US cities or in London, Paris, Berlin, Wellington, we are all calling our institutions to eradicate systemic racism pushing black people to the margins of our societies, reducing them in poverty, criminalising and killing them.

A long, multiethnic march with no leaders or stages is crossing the US: it’s not only, and no longer, a ‘black issue’ as their lives matter for everybody, but institutions do not seem they got the message.

Last of la long series of homicides of African origin by the hands of police, George Floyd is a martyr far all of us, beyond US borders.

In Great Britain, where African and Caribbean origin people are systemically excluded from career progress, easily deported and twice as much target of stop and search by the police, on Sunday three to four thousand people marched towards the US Embassy in London:

23 arrested and clashes have been reported and, apart from sympathetic tweets from Labour, LibDems, Greens leaders and MPs, no mentions have been made of how culture in Britain is pretty the same as in US, though police is generally less aggressive and violent towards black people.

UK Foreign Secretary Raab dismissed the killing as a ‘media distraction’ from the work the country is doing with US on many other fronts like coronavirus.

All feel systemic, institutionalised racism does not represent our culture, thoughts, sentiments. We are no longer ready to be subdued to regressive, bigot, elitist, sneaky white supremacy cowardly disguised as indifference and tolerated when erupts into far right violence.

This concerns minorities who represent nobody, but hold power, assets and money and police is the weaponised arm of them. The very violent end of racism trained to target black people while betraying any commitment to keeping communities safe.

Who is in charge of recruiting police officers? Based on what skills and cultural background? What’s the average percentage of white officers in constabularies, who trains them?

The whole system is to be scrapped at least because police must reflect needs and structure of the wider society they are tasked to protect.

Police are supposed to protect us and look instead what they are doing over these days, right in the very moment in which societies are putting them under scrutiny.

Part of the long term change will be decided in the court of justices, part in a radical transformation of the police where a high percentage of officers must be African origin both in US and UK and in countries with a fair representation of black communities.

Hence the call growing across the US to defunding the police until this is being radically changed as being against black people is their common denominator.

The dynamic of the murder of innocent and unarmed George Floyd shows, in fact, the other three Minneapolis police officers played an active role in the killing by immobilising the victim and standing still until he died at the scene by asphyxiation. Independent autopsy conducted by Dr. Michael Baden for the Floyd family gives plenty of legal ground not for Chauvin only, but also for officers  Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J Alexander Kueng as it has be announced today, will be charged for the murder.