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“Black Lives Matter” has become a global rallying cry against racism and police brutality

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The police killing of George Floyd has sparked a worldwide reckoning.

By Jen [e-mail] Jun 12, 2020, 7:30am EDT

With many links

Thousands of protesters marched against police brutality and racism in Brussels, Belgium, on Sunday. The demonstration was about George Floyd, the black man killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when a police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.

But the protest was also about Belgium: its colonial history, its current inequities. Demonstrators scaled a statue of King Leopold II, the Belgian ruler who killed millions of Congolese people, and hoisted the flag of the Democratic Republic of Congo below it.

[...]

“We stand alone in terms of creating our momentum — not just responding to what’s happening in the US,” Alex, a 29-year-old organizer with Black Lives Matter UK, told me. “But at the same time, obviously, solidarity is really, really important, and we operate under the same banner, ‘Black Lives Matter.’”

“I think that’s because we understand that what happens over there also happens over here,” she added. And US activists, she said, know that, as well. “And so we understand the connections there as well as the connections with other people and other parts of Europe. So we’ve also connected with groups in Germany, in France, and in Belgium recently,” Alex said. “There’s so much in common.”

[...]

Protesters with the Rhodes Must Fall campaign held a sit-in outside of Oxford University, demanding the removal of a statue of British imperialist Cecil Rhodes. The group has been fighting this issue for years but has said the Black Lives Matter protests “reignited” the campaign, per the Guardian. In London, a statue of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill was graffitied, calling him a racist.

Politicians across the political spectrum in the UK denounced the vandalism, even as many expressed solidarity with the larger cause. “I don’t condone at all any attacks on our police or any disorder or criminal damage,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan told Sky News, “but we’ve got to recognize that our public realm, statues, squares, street names don’t accurately reflect our values, or London, in 2020.”

Khan has promised that a committee will review street names and landmarks in London, saying those with ties to slavery should be taken down or changed. On Tuesday, a statue of Robert Milligan, another slave trader, was removed — this time by authorities — outside a London museum.

[...]

Activists in Belgium have also targeted the country’s ubiquitous monuments and honorifics to King Leopold II. Protesters across the country defaced the landmarks, splashing some with red paint.

One in Antwerp was set on fire and has since been removed — though the right-wing mayor said he did so because it was a “public safety issue,” according to the New York Times. More than 75,000 people have signed a petition asking all Leopold statues to be removed by June 30, the anniversary of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s independence.

Leopold killed millions of Congolese in his exploits, forcing them to work under the threat of cruel violence. Collingwoode-William said to keep the statues up is saying that these, and other black lives, do not matter.

“Sometimes it’s shocking to see that taking down a monument hurts people more than a death,” she said.

In France, protesters are confronting racism and whether the country honors its commitment to equality. “Of course, France and America are very different countries, but they have a common enemy in racism,” Maelle, a 23-year-old protester in Paris told France24. “Nothing will ever change until people are educated about racism.”

The protests have revived calls for justice for Adama Traoré, a 24-year-old French man of Malian descent who was killed in police custody, and many believe was killed by a police chokehold and also couldn’t breathe. This week, the French government said police could no longer use chokeholds when arresting people.

https://www.vox.com/2020/6/12/21285244/black-lives-matter-global-protests-george-floyd-uk-belgium