Witoubou Newmai
The May 25, 2020 incident of Minneapolis has nudged the collective conscience of humanity so much so that it is taking different groups of people in different regions to different directions. One such has been the issue of racism. But what has crossed the bar has been the manner in which one human being has consciously and defiantly allowed his conscience to go on this long of nine minutes in taking away the life of another fellow human being. We find it hard to describe in words the inhumaneness of this nine-minute ‘process’ after we saw the video clip.
We are aware that cruelties and gory incidents are as old as human history. The 9-minute video of George Floyd killing has reminded us about those ugly incidents, and also tells us so much of them. The video has also provoked the collective conscience to ask a plethora of questions.
What thoughts must be passing through the mind of police officer Derek Chauvin while he was kneeling on the neck of George Floyd in these nine minutes? There is not an iota of doubt that the police officer chose this peculiar manner to kill George Floyd consciously. Derek Chauvin’s conscience allowed him to go on this long as his knee felt the flesh and warmth of another human being who was pleading and wanting to live. We may also ask as to what capacity the human conscience can allow the ‘elements of inhumaneness’ in the human conscience.
The humane voice---“I can’t breathe”---from George Floyd was not humane enough to remind the police officer that he is another human being.
According to a Wikipedia entry on the incident citing several media reports, Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, knelt on Floyd's neck for almost nine minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down in the street, begging for his life and repeatedly saying, "I can't breathe". It further said that another police officer further restrained Floyd while another police officer prevented bystanders from intervening. “During the final three minutes Floyd was motionless and had no pulse while Chauvin ignored onlookers' pleas to remove his knee, which he did not do until medics told him to,” it added.
Going by this description of the incident, we may also ask those thoughts running through the mind of George Floyd during his ‘ordeal’.
The thought of one fellow human being killing him running through this long and the reflection of this thought of the victim, a human being, on the mind and heart of the police officer, another human being, for nine minutes stretch further tells us to ask one more profound question: How many people of this 7.7 billion human community probably must be carrying ‘inhumane element’ in them that has the capacity to do what Derek Chauvin did?
