George Clooney made use of his enormous platform to talk about his support for black people of the United States.
This mega popular actor and philanthropist wrote a piece for The Daily Beast, it was called “George Clooney: America’s Greatest Pandemic Is Anti-Black Racism.”
In the essay he talks about the recent on goings, specifically the protests and supports “systemic change in our law enforcement and in our criminal justice system.”
Clooney phrased it as racism in the US is “our pandemic” and we don’t have a cure for it.
“This is our pandemic. It infects all of us, and in 400 years we’ve yet to find a vaccine,” he wrote. “It seems we’ve stopped even looking for one and we just try to treat the wound on an individual basis. And we sure haven’t done a very good job of that.”
He went on to say, “So this week, as we’re wondering what it’s going to take to fix these seemingly insurmountable problems, just remember we created these issues so we can fix them.”
“There is only one way in this country to bring lasting change: Vote,” he wrote.
George also talked about how the recent protests all over the country are similar to those in the 90s. And he pointed out the similarity between George Floyd’s and Eric Garner’s death in 2014, since they both said “I can’t breathe.”
The world found out about George Floyd on Monday, May 25. In a video of the situation, which thankfully nearby people managed to record went online, a police officer from Minneapolis, Derek Chauvin, kept Floyd on the asphalt and put his knee on his neck. There were also 3 other police officers that stood by as things were unfolding.
A separate autopsy was done which confirmed that George Floyd died at the scene. The Medical Examiner that works for the Hennepin County also released his own autopsy which concluded that Floyd died from “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint and neck compression.”
In the next few days the police officer that caused the death was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter. Right now the three other officers haven’t been prosecuted but they have been fired.
“Is it 1992? Did we just hear a jury tell us that the white cops that we watched on tape hundreds of times beating Rodney King weren’t guilty of their obvious crimes? Is it 2014, when Eric Garner was executed for selling cigarettes by a white cop who strangled him as we watched? His words “I can’t breathe” forever etched into our minds,” Clooney said.
“How many times have we seen people of color killed by police? Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Laquan McDonald. There is little doubt that George Floyd was murdered,” he continued. “We watched as he took his last breath at the hands of four police officers. Now we see another defiant reaction to the systemic cruel treatment of a portion of our citizens like we saw in 1968, 1992, and 2014.”
He went to say that we don’t know when protests will lessen up and that we can only “hope and pray that no one else will be killed.”
“The anger and the frustration we see playing out once again in our streets is just a reminder of how little we’ve grown as a country from our original sin of slavery,” he shared. “The fact that we aren’t actually buying and selling other human beings anymore is not a badge of honor. We need systemic change in our law enforcement and in our criminal justice system.”
George also said, “We need policymakers and politicians that reflect basic fairness to all of their citizens equally. Not leaders that stoke hatred and violence as if the idea of shooting looters could ever be anything less than a racial dog whistle. Bull Connor was more subtle.”
You can check out the piece on The Daily Beast’s website.
It’s also noteworthy to mention that George Clooney isn’t the only celebrity to express his opinion on this. Selena Gomez, Beyonce, Lizzo, Harry Styles and many, many other celebrities have spoken up about this.
You could even see many celebrities take to the streets and take part in the protests.
