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US dodges unrest after Floyd verdict, but for how long?

Friday, 23 April 2021 10:48 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 23 April 2021 10:48 PM ]

Ramin Mazaheri

Press TV, Chicago

Much of America breathed a sigh of relief when the cop who killed George Floyd was convicted of murder. A “not guilty” verdict was widely expected to have set off deadly rebellions on the scale of 1968 when Martin Luther King was assassinated or 1992 when cops were acquitted in the Rodney King beating case.

But across the country there’s a feeling that the calm won’t last because cops in America kill an average of three people per day. With police now often forced to wear body cameras and cell phones serving as citizen cameras there seems to be a constant stream of shocking cop killings on the nightly news.

North Carolina, Oklahoma here in Chicago and in too many other places to count have all seen major protests against police violence in the past week. Storefronts are being boarded up, and many wonder if they will stay that way all summer.

The George Floyd protests in 2020 were highly politicized by the Democratic Party, but many wonder if the party will encourage the same confrontational stances in 2021. President Joe Biden reportedly discussed deploying the National Guard to all 50 states ahead of the Floyd verdict, while some Republican-led states are introducing often shocking anti-protest legislation.

The United States has become so divided that the threat of widespread socio political violence now occurs on a regular basis. Underpinning it all is the widespread perception of a lack of justice caused by a fundamental and unstoppable corruption which seems incredibly difficult to remedy.

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