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George Floyd killing: The 'Sarajevo' for race relations

Donald Forbes
March 22, 2021

The murder of George Floyd in 2020 was a watershed moment for race relations. Now, there can only be progress, argues Donald Forbes.

The way George Floyd died was clap of thunder. It opened our eyes for the first time to the new era we have been feeling our way towards for some time, without fully understanding the dissipation of white hegemony evolving.

Now, it is out in the open and we can understand.

By world, I really mean a world, the world of the white West; that world died with a white policeman's knee on a black man's neck in a Minneapolis Street. It was as portentous as the shot fired in Sarajevo in 1914 which also separated "before" and "after" worlds; the image of Floyd dying is unforgettable.

The knell has rung for white people, who represent a mere 11% of the world's population. From now on, the non-white world, that for hundreds of years was dominated by the outward-looking, colonising West, is going to assimilate us and do so in our own countries.

The United States is leading the way, but Europe will follow. The US is in the vanguard because of slavery and a black population big enough to swing elections. Europe is less diverse but has colonialism on its conscience and Muslim immigration contending with its liberal values.

It's safe to say that our grandchildren will not enjoy white privilege, either consciously or unconsciously, because it won't exist even if white people remain a (shrinking) majority. Our way of conceptualising race has changed and will change more as non-white people gain power and influence.

Progressivism saw the light before the rest of us. It's easier for liberals – whether they are Mensheviks or Bolsheviks as far as race goes – than for conservatives to understand what is happening is unstoppable. Many, especially on the right, see progressives as being extreme but often they are simply ahead, writing the first draft of the future.

White liberal Bolsheviks in the universities and the media have pushed the aims of Critical Race Theory, identity politics and intersectionality because there is truth at their core. They are dragging the corporate world along with them as the skittles of white privilege fall.

Howard Zinn's alternative reading of the past in his People's History of the United States is still controversial today – and still taught in American schools – but grasped the idea that swathes of official history everywhere are composed of cosmeticised myth of which national anthems are typically representative.

Zinn's ideas are taught to all students regardless of race or religion. The History of England written from a Catholic perspective by the 19th century English priest John Lingard was taught only in Catholic schools because it diverged from the official version created by Protestants – a compartmentalisation which seems bizarre today. It's as if we British look at our history through one eye rather than two.

The history of the United States can no longer be portrayed as a linear progression from the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers to the revolution against British rule, the writing of the constitution, the civil war and the emergence of the US as the world's leading power. All this is a white history in which others lived unheard. The charge of exclusivity sticks.

White American history no longer exists on its own as an "end" in the Fukuyaman sense. There is a multi-faceted non-white history and in which many have found a voice to express. That voice will not be quieted until minorities reach equality as they define it rather than as it is defined for them by white people.

The manner of Floyd's death – and the jolt it gave to liberal Mensheviks who lapped up the accusatory preaching of Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo – enabled black people to speak to white America with a confidence and authority that had been dormant since Martin Luther King's murder. We are back on the path of historical determinism since we know where the future is taking us.

The message of BLM, that "we are no longer asking, we are telling", has captured the Democratic party. There is no mistaking the anger and pride that drives the black women in congress but also on the Labour benches at Westminster. The accusation of racism has never been more potent and its sometimes scatter gun use has not diluted it.

The public statues pulled down by protestors emblemised white history in which there are no heroes to black people. The names of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are being removed from schools and other public buildings because black people see them differently from white people. The new logic dictates that for them to remain would be evidence of white supremacy.

We've reached a turning point in race relations which white people, who are going to have to give up most, increasingly admit is necessary and overdue. For that reason, it can be a mainly peaceful and bloodless revolution despite the Floyd killing which was its most recent catalyst and last year's urban violence. There will be more critical racial theory excesses to come but there will be no turning back either.

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Donald is a retired journalist who wrote for the Agence France-Presse, Associated Press, and Reuters. He was a chief correspondent in Poland, Hungary and Yugoslavia. Donald now regularly writes for The Conservative Woman.

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