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Graphic Truth: Five years on from George Floyd, pessimism sets in
Five years ago this Sunday, a white police officer was filmed killing George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis during an arrest. Video of the killing sparked protests, violence, and a racial reckoning in the United States and across the globe. Many segments of the public, especially on the left, clamored for institutional changes in the wake of Floyd’s murder — including an overhaul of US police departments — with the aim of addressing perceived systemic biases and advancing racial equality.
But since then, hopes for racial equality between Black and white Americans have waned. In January 2019, 65% of US adults believed that Black Americans would have equal rights with white people, per Pew Research Center polling. Today, that figure is 51%. The drop in optimism has been especially pronounced among white Americans, as the graphic shows.
The history of Black voting rights in America
Until 1965, Black Americans who wanted to vote first faced faces unanswerable poll questions, and later equally tough literacy tests.
The Voting Rights Act banned these and other forms of overt voter suppression. But in 2013, the Supreme Court struck down a key provision of the law, requiring states to get prior federal approval to tweak their voting laws for racial discrimination.
The ruling has allowed dozens of states to pass increasingly restrictive voting laws targeting minority groups with measures like bolstering voter ID, eliminating polling places, and rolling back mail-in voting.
But things aren’t always so black and white, or blue and red, Ian Bremmer explains on GZERO World. Georgia is now ahead of New York on expanding early voting and no-excuse absentee ballots.
There are many reasons why Black voters turn out less than white Americans, and not all have to do with voter suppression. Still, progressive leaders worry restrictive laws will (further) widen the gap.
The upcoming 2022 midterm elections will be the first major test of these new voting laws. That is, unless Democrats pass new voting rights legislation — but the bill will die on the Senate floor.
Should the US cancel student loan debt?
Joe Biden has already cancelled more US student than any other president. But progressive Democrats want him to write off a lot more to reduce the racial wealth gap and help people recover better from COVID's economic ruin. Republicans are against all this because it would be unfair to current and future borrowers and to taxpayers footing the bill, not to mention subsidizing the rich.
Watch this episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer: How the COVID-damaged economy surprised Adam Tooze
- The Democrats run Washington – so what are they scared of ... ›
- Will the US debt ceiling debate cause a government shutdown ... ›
- Studying in a pandemic: The plight of international students in ... ›
- The Graphic Truth: Who sends the most students to the US ... ›
- $10,000 in student loan forgiveness: what's the point? - GZERO Media ›
- Biden forgives (some) US student loan debt - GZERO Media ›
- The Graphic Truth: Who pays most/least for college tuition? - GZERO Media ›
- The Graphic Truth: Who pays most/least for college tuition? - GZERO Media ›
Podcast: Breathing While Black with WaPo's Karen Attiah
Listen: In the latest episode of GZERO World, Ian Bremmer explores international reaction to the murder of George Floyd and global protests against police brutality and racism. Karen Attiah, Global Opinions Editor of The Washington Post, explains her view that, on issues of race and inequality, the U.S. is a "developing country," and while this moment of uprising offers hope for real change there is still much work to be done. Attiah discusses protestors taking to the streets despite fears of the COVID pandemic, and the centuries-long struggle black Americans have faced on the road to equality. Attiah also reflects on the 2018 murder of her Washington Post colleague Jamal Khashoggi, killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Breathing while Black: WaPo's Karen Attiah on racial injustice
In the latest episode of GZERO World, Ian Bremmer explores international reaction to the murder of George Floyd and global protests against police brutality and racism. Karen Attiah, Global Opinions Editor of The Washington Post, explains her view that, on issues of race and inequality, the U.S. is a "developing country," and while this moment of uprising offers hope for real change there is still much work to be done.
Attiah discusses protesters taking to the streets despite fears of the COVID pandemic, and the centuries-long struggle black Americans have faced on the road to equality. Attiah also reflects on the 2018 murder of her Washington Post colleague Jamal Khashoggi, killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
- US global reputation a year after George Floyd's murder; EU sanctions against Belarus; Olympics outlook - GZERO Media ›
- US global reputation a year after George Floyd's murder; EU sanctions against Belarus; Olympics outlook - GZERO Media ›
- Podcast: How we got here: Evaluating 1619 and US history with Nikole Hannah-Jones - GZERO Media ›
Washington Post’s Karen Attiah: U.S. a “developing country” on race, equality
In a personal and insightful interview with GZERO World host Ian Bremmer, Washington Post Global Opinion Editor Karen Attiah discusses this charged moment of unrest in America, and her own family's experiences with racism. Attiah, the daughter of Ghanaian immigrants, describes her father's journey from learning of Emmett Till's murder as a young boy to being cautious of police officers in Texas, despite the fact he was a successful doctor.
The complete interview is part of the latest episode of GZERO World, and begins airing today, Friday, June 19, nationally on public television stations. Check local listings and visit gzeromedia.com for more.
Cash Bail: Money Shouldn't Define Freedom
Across America, thousands of demonstrators--white and black alike--have been arrested for protesting the death of George Floyd at the hands of police. Many of them will experience the country's cash bail system for the first time. It's known as the front door of the nation's criminal justice system, and can ultimately determine how an arrest or accusation could impact a person's life. Those who can afford to pay bail are able to go home and await their court date. But those who cannot may fall into bail-bond debt traps or be forced to sit in jail until their cases are resolved, perhaps losing their jobs or even custody of their children in the process. The cash bail system disproportionately impacts black people in the U.S. And that, says bail-reform advocate Insha Rahman, is very much by design.
Quick Take: Pandemic, protests and police reform
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Yet another Monday of pandemic, of social discord, of economic contraction. It's just kind of what we're expecting this summer in 2020, elections coming up. I've got a Quick Take for you. Look at a few of the things that seem interesting to me right now.
I mean, first of all, I haven't talked as much about my response to Black Lives Matter and these massive protests around the country. Obviously, I'm very sympathetic to the cause. There's massive inequality and massive racism in the United States. And this community has faced the worst of all possible worlds, not only from policing, but also from the unemployment and the health care challenges that have come from coronavirus. It's like the perfect storm this summer.
And so, you can easily understand why that video so hard to watch of George Floyd, almost nine minutes, as he's killed by these police officers, would lead to such extraordinary outburst, such deep anger and pain across the country. I will tell you that I am not a fan of the term "defund the police." And frankly, I think it's fortunate for Joe Biden that he decided not to take that on. I've heard from folks in the White House that they were hoping that he would really grab that slogan because they think it's problematic for those that support it. It sounds great, but I don't think taking money away from the police would actually solve the problem. It would probably make police officers feel more insecure and have them be even worse trained.
One of the biggest problems in the United States is that training for American police is radically inadequate. They get so much less training than police in Canada, across all the major European countries, I mean, even emerging markets, democracies like India, where the training isn't very good, but it's a lot longer. The United States just has really defunded training for police. And so, as a consequence, you have a lot of people on the force that don't have a good sense of what experienced community policing needs to be like. And remember, a couple of the police officers that were there, of the four, that killed George Floyd, had been there for four days. I mean, you know, it's a real problem when you have inadequate training. And defunding the police is not going to lead to better training, it will probably lead to less.
You also have militarization of police, an enormous amount of advanced, whether it's riot armor, grenade launchers, armored plated vehicles. I mean, when you looked at what Ferguson ended up having in Missouri and why you think the police were not seen as part of the community, a big part of it is not enough training and massively gunned up. And that's a problem for all communities, black community, white community, Hispanic community. But, of course, when the most troubled areas are the poorest, you're going to end up with the worst policing and the biggest disparities in those areas. And again, the African American community in the United States getting the worst of it. So, for me, it would not be "defund the police," it would be "fund the police differently." It is not a pretty exciting, catchy phrase to get people on the streets, but it is probably what's necessary. I don't think we need as many police. I think we need them to be vastly more skilled and trained and with less militarization. We could learn a lot of lessons from what they do in places like Canada and Germany and Holland, the Netherlands, less so what we're doing here in the United States.
Another question, what are we doing about coronavirus? I mean, we have so many people out there demonstrating, protesting. We're now going to have rallies starting again this week with President Trump. These are large numbers of people gathering together. We had been hearing for months that you shouldn't be gathering together, you should be socially distancing. Very hard to socially distance when you're at a rally or when you're at a mass protest. And especially when people aren't wearing masks or when those that are don't know how to wear them or put them on and take them off properly, you're going to get more spread. It's good that it's largely outdoors. That clearly will limit the level of spread.
We are also seeing that a lot of states opened up early and opened up maximally as opposed to gradually in Europe. In Europe, the curve is being bent down. In a lot of American states, you're seeing explosive growth in cases on the back of those openings, particularly in southern states and some of the southwest. Even starting to see a number of hospitals get dangerously close to being overwhelmed from ICU patients that have coronavirus. This is dangerous stuff.
The ability to tell protesters stop protesting in this environment is nearly zero. The ability to tell Trump you shouldn't have rallies when you haven't said anything about problems with all of the mass protests for Black Lives Matter, is virtually nil. And the ability to tell people that have been in place in lockdown for months and have lost their jobs or losing their jobs and don't know how they're paying the next bill, you can't go back to work as they're opening up, try to stop that opening or slow down, almost impossible. So, we're probably heading to a much more significant second wave than we would have had otherwise.
I will tell you, if it were up to me, what I'd like to see in the United States, is universal mask wearing. Mandatory, with significant fines. I mean, I'm seeing in some cases in the Gulf, thousands of dollars if you're not seen wearing a mask properly in a public space. That's what I think we need in the United States. That at the same time as you open up the economies. You'd still end up with more spread than you'd like, but you would have far less than we're looking at right now. And the economy would pick up more quickly. People are going to say, "I don't want to wear a mask," you know, "how dare you say that? It's against my American rights. Individualist." You know, in Orange County, we have all these people complaining, saying, "I don't need to wear a mask." Well, you know what I mean, for me, in a pandemic, I am willing to suspend your ability, your individual rights to get infected and to pass that infection on other people, because I want to improve the economy and I don't want as many people dying from coronavirus. That would be my choice. I suspect that's going to be controversial.
It's inconceivable that we're going to implement it because we have a president that refuses to wear a mask himself and thinks it's a sign of virility and masculinity for others not to. And so there's a lot of a refusal to make that announcement. You also have all sorts of people out there that are demonstrating for rights that are way overdue and very angry about it, understandably so. And they're not going to listen if you tell them to wear a mask, irrespective. And it's almost impossible to police that, especially when the police department is seen as delegitimized. And then you have a lot of Americans just don't listen to authority no matter what. You know, it's a "we know better." I mean, you can't get people to wear motorcycle helmets. How do you get them to wear masks? But still, that's what I would do. But, you know, I'm not running the country. So, it's not up to me.