Chelsea Gibbs and Grace Windsor
Key Points
- BLM protests have been held across all 50 US states in 2020
- 3 in 4 Indigenous Australians regularly experience racism
- 1 in 3 people experience racism in the workplace
It’s been three months since the murder of George Floyd. From Floyds tragic death it has reignited the Black Lives Matter Movement, and has highlighted police brutality among our communities. George Floyds’s murder has not only sparked civil unrest but has provoked ongoing protests across the globe.
It started out as local protests that began in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area of Minnesota, before quickly spreading nationwide and in over 2,000 cities and towns in over 60 countries in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. George Floyd is only one out of the thousands of African American civilians who has been killed at the hands of police each year.
A wide variety of public polls show that even before Floyd’s death, a rising share of Americans across racial lines have agreed that discrimination against African Americans is an ongoing problem.
The recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery has reinstated the presence of white ignorance here in Australia. As Australia continues to have a complex relationship with the notion of racism, it highlights how largely worrying and unaware the Australian community has become, this disconnection and desensitised nature to racial discrimination prevailing.
In the past year, 1 in 5 people living in Australia were targets of racial discrimination (around 4.6 million people). And at least 7 in 10 Australian students will experience racism at some point during their childhood.
“Customers would request to not have me work on their cars due to the colour of my skin”
Ben Walkenson
Ben Walkenson who is of Aboriginal descendant has experienced throughout this lifetime and still in current day racism from fellow Australians. “I recently opened my own business and for this purchased a new car, I often will get pulled over, breathalysed and asked if this is my vehicle with no explanation to why,” Ben says.
With this is Ben also stated that in his past work as a mechanic “customers would request to not have me work on their cars due to the colour of my skin.”
George Floyds murder has not only reopened the conversation about white privilege in our modern society, but also has reignited a global movement that will define history.