Surely no one can argue that a man held down with hugely excessive force and consequently dying is unacceptable. Whether the actions of a police officer in doing this amount to assault, manslaughter or murder is for the courts to decide, but clearly his actions, as well as those of his colleagues who stood by, are a shocking indictment of policing in the United States. That this was followed by film of an elderly man being pushed to the ground by other police, armed to the gills with every kind of para-military paraphernalia, simply adds to the appalling picture of policing in that country.
The first episode concerned a black man, George Floyd, the second a white man whose name has not been blazoned across the media, although both events demonstrated the same arrogant, violent and utterly overbearing attitude of American police. Their actions were directed not just at a black man but at an elderly white man who carried no threat but has found himself in hospital as a result. Perhaps most shockingly of all, most if not all the members of a police squad have now resigned "in solidarity" with their colleagues who have been charged with assault. It seems that they have their own views about what is and is not acceptable behaviour and that these views have nothing to do with upholding the law.
Following the death of George Floyd there have been protests and riots in the United States, which might have been expected, although no one seems to have protested very much about the treatment of the elderly white man. Yesterday there were also protests which turned into a riot in central London, ostensibly about the mistreatment of coloured people in this country but, from brief images on the television, attended by many of the same "rent-a-mob" yobs, including many white faces, who turn up for all such events. British police were attacked and a number ended up needing medical attention.
What the media and assorted anti-racist organisations seem not to understand is that the behaviour of such crowds as was seen yesterday achieve the exact opposite of their professed aim. They don't seem to understand that the never-ending claims of discrimination create more and more ill-feeling, rather than bringing society together. The truth is that most people of most backgrounds have no problem relating to and accepting each other; problems only arise where particular groups go out of their way to separate themselves, forming violet violent anti-social gangs, or importing alien cultures into the traditional society of the United Kingdom. Of course there are some who will never accept a coloured face and others who will probably never see a white face as anything but that of an oppressor, under any circumstances, but they are a very small minority of our society and do not reflect the views of the population at large.
George Floyd's death was shocking, as was the assault on a harmless elderly man. These events did not happen in this country and yet we have a full blown media response as if they had, as well as mobs on the streets attempting to use them for their own purposes. When drug gangs throughout the UK seem to be run by men of Afro-Caribbean origin and Pakistani or Bangladeshi gangs have abducted and terrorised white girls before forcing them into prostitution, why are there not mobs of white protesters on the streets ?
It seems that discrimination and anti-racist propaganda only works in one direction.
