• Racial Violence. 2020, the Son of 1968
  • Violence returns to Washington as Trump threatens 10-year prisoner to vandalize statues

Gary Younge says summers in America could have a name of their own, like hurricanes. The name of any of the blacks who die each year killed by the Police in the United States. It happens more in summer because when it is hot it is easier for a bullet to hit you on the street. "Like hurricanes, their arrival is predictable, however, when it makes landfall, its effect remains devastating," Younge wrote in the article with which he said goodbye to the country after 12 years as a correspondent for the British newspaper The Guardian in New York and Chicago.

Several books also came out of that trip, the last one, a heartbreaking portrait of the violence in America that Libros del KO brought a few months ago to Spain in a premonitory way under the title One more day in the death of the United States , the brilliant journalistic chronicle of any given day.

The day is November 23, 2013, but it could have been the 24th or any other month, any year. The fact is that throughout those 24 hours chosen at random by the author, 10 adolescents died from firearms throughout the country, from one coast to the other . The youngest was 9 years old and the oldest was 19. They were all boys, only one was white, two were Hispanic and seven were black.

"There is no other western country with a murder rate comparable to that of the black community in the US," warns the journalist.

Day 23, however, was not an exceptional day. In the US, an average of seven children and adolescents die every day from firearms, the leading cause of death for blacks under the age of 19 . "Those daily deaths are not news, but a mere fact of mortality," Younge writes. "They are low enough interference that the country can continue its life without worrying."

None of the victims whose stories Younge collects died at the hands of the Police, however, years after its publication, it has become the best radiograph to understand the disease that cyclically runs through the country, its structural violence and deep racial discrimination that seems to have no cure. The hurricane is called this year George Floyd.

Floyd's daughter said that her father's death was going to change the world. Are you optimistic about the reaction after your murder? I cannot assess what kind of change it could bring because I am no longer there, but I am always optimistic, it is in my nature. People are asking questions about state violence and how it affects the black population. Polls suggest that he is changing his mind about the Black Lives Matter movement , so I think there are opportunities. However, racism is a resistant virus that adapts to the political body it is in.

Black Lives Matter movement protest in central Washington.REUTERS

Younge responds by email from his London confinement and has been overwhelmed by media requests. A few days have passed since the massive protests around the world for the murder of George Floyd, suffocated by the knee of a Police officer in the middle of the street, and the most serious altercations in the US, which left thousands of detainees, about twenty dead. and the most absolute chaos broadcast to everyone in prime time .

Is it impossible to fight racism in the United States without violence? You can fight anything without violence. The question is whether that is the most effective way to combat it. Racism is ultimately a very violent ideology, so it should not surprise us if it produces violence. Martin Luther King made great strides in the fight against racism, but I don't think it would have been achieved without the state fearing the alternative. No one achieves anything simply by asking. What role should whites play in the fight against racism? Racism degrades everyone, not just blacks. Whites must fight white supremacy because ultimately, as human beings, they care. The way in which each one does it will depend on where they are and what is possible for them.

You can fight anything without violence. The question is, is that the most effective way to combat it?

The latest images of Minnesota on fire are reminiscent of the very serious incidents that occurred in Los Angeles in 1992 after the acquittal of a group of police officers who brutally assaulted a black taxi driver named Rodney King. The feeling, 30 years later, is that we have made very little progress. "Many things have changed but not all for the better," says Younge. “The United States has had a black president and also its most openly racist president . The country has also experienced a major economic crisis that increased inequality between rich and poor. Since black people are more likely to be poor, that has been a significant change. ”

Has Trump brought racism to the White House or has it been racism that has brought Trump to the White House? Racism never left America. The problem is that it has never come this far and in such a blatant and undisguised way. Trump is both a product of and an instigator of American racism. Could the racial conflict of the past few months have any effect on the upcoming elections? It is too early to know. How is it possible that even today a black man in Washington has a lower life expectancy than any man in the Gaza Strip? America has been a slave state for 200 years; an apartheid state for another 100 years and has only been a non-racial democracy for 55 or so years. What we are experiencing today is the kind of inequalities that emerge from a story like this. Are you afraid that the crisis caused by the coronavirus will exacerbate polarization around the world, increase racism and favor the emergence of even more radical political positions? We are likely to be heading towards a massive economic depression, just as we have just recovered from the last one. And those are the conditions under which right-wing populism thrives. But it is true that it is not the only possibility. We have heard in recent months that the coronavirus does not understand race or social class. Do you agree? In Britain, at least, the virus has affected the poorest the most. The poor are those who have to go to work, those who live in overcrowded conditions and those in poorer health, so they are more vulnerable to the virus. Since blacks are among the poorest, that makes them disproportionately vulnerable. In Britain, regardless of age, we know that black people and people of Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent are four times more likely to die from the virus than white people. And the figures are similar in the US. It is true that the coronavirus does not discriminate; society does it.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Donald Trump
  • George Floyd
  • Racism
  • U.S
  • Violence

Racial Tension Trump takes refuge in the White House bunker as the United States experiences the most serious racial unrest since the murder of Martin Luther King

EEUUTrump proclaims itself president of "law and order" and threatens to deploy the Army to quell protests

USA Death of a young man in Detroit during racial protests over the death of George Floyd

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