Background information

Ben Okri’s article “ ‘I can’t breathe’: why George Floyd’s words reverberate around the world” discusses the murder of George Floyd and why this instance of deadly racism affected people so deeply in comparison to earlier cases. 

In May 2020, a 46-year-old African American named George Floyd was killed when a white police officer knelt on his neck for over nine minutes. Floyd had been arrested after a shop owner accused him of using a counterfeit $20 bill. When police officers handcuffed Floyd and tried to get him into the police car, Floyd said he was not resisting arrest, but he was recovering from Covid-19, was claustrophobic, and had anxiety and added that he did not want to sit in the car because he could not breathe. A white police officer, De...