Mereja.Forum

[Abe Abraham]

http://eg.china-embassy.org/eng/fyrth/t1878751.htm


Global Times: People took to the street across the US to protest against racial discrimination on May 25, one year since the killing of George Floyd, an African America who died after a police officer pressed the knee onto his neck. However, the issue of anti-Asian and -African hate is still there and the situation hasn't been changed since the death of Floyd. Do you have any comment?

Zhao Lijian: As you said, many netizens have raised these questions to the US side: Has anything changed since one year ago? Can people like Floyd breathe freely now?

Floyd's family said brokenheartedly that "It's been a long year. It's been a painful year". One year on, the desperate cry of "I can't breathe" still echoes, and gun violence and other violence targeting ethnic minorities keeps hitting the headlines. At least 64 people, more than half of which are people of color, have died at the hands of police in 21 days since the start of the trial of the Floyd case according to reports. An Axios-Ipsos poll indicates that the relationship between Black Americans and the police, instead of improving, is becoming a profound and escalating crisis over the past year. Likewise, 72% of Black Americans said police shootings of Black or brown youths have gotten worse in the last year.

What's inside the Floyd case is just a tip of the iceberg on the issue of racism in the US. A poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 6 in 10 Americans say racism in the United States is a "very or extremely serious" problem. More than 6,600 hate incidents against Asians have been reported in the year after the pandemic began in the United States, announced Stop AAPI Hate, a non-profit organization. Everyone knows that the US has a poor record of racial discrimination and hate crime. The US leader also admitted this year that hate crime and racial discrimination is a "ugly poison" that plagued the American society.

We hope the US will get its house in order, solve its own problems and ensure safety for its people and enable them to enjoy freedom from discrimination and terror and to breathe freely. It should forsake its obsession with spreading lies and disinformation against other countries, stirring up trouble and interfering in others' internal affairs.