“In the end, we will not remember the words of the enemy, but the silence of the friends”

Martin Luther King

“Please! I can't breathe! My tummy hurts and my throat hurts! Whole body pain! This is how you will kill me!” George P. It was Floyd's last words. It was held on 25 May in Minneapolis, USA. He was 46 years old and African-American. On the street, he was thrown to the ground and a police officer crushed his neck with a knee for nine minutes, until he suffocated to death. Your crime: paying in a store with a fake $20 ticket.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. A small example of something that happens every year in the order of the United States. And soon after, on August 23, in Wisconsin, Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old African-American, was the first of his three sons, after the police shot seven shots in his back. After a family scandal, he discussed with his partner and was about to enter his car...

In July 2014, in New York, Eric Garner pronounced the same phrase as Floyd, while a policeman shook his neck with his hands. The last sigh gave it, after having been like that for more than 20 seconds. His crime consisted of engaging in a fight and selling illegal cigarettes. And of course, I was African-American. Shortly afterwards, the police who had strangled Eric was released without charge in the courts of the British capital. One more example of what happens every year.

Thousands of people take the United States as an example all over the world. But an example of what? A strong public health and education system? From an equal society of opportunities? A fair distribution of resources? From a country of freedoms and rights? I do not think so. Without denying its positive aspects, it is clear that as a system they have major and serious deficiencies in the essential areas. One of these problems is racism and associated police violence.

Racism and harassment in all areas (social, educational, judicial, labour, business, government bodies, media) and since childhood. And so over many years, for centuries, there's progress in progress and in republican or Democratic power.

It's a very violent society. And this directly affects the ease of access to arms and the aforementioned social inequalities. Every year there are 15,000 killings; in prisons there are 2.2 million prisoners (without fixed evidence) and another four million on provisional release; the police kills about 1,000 people each year, most of them black; and of course 77 per cent of the police are white and almost no one is convicted of such killings. Blacks are 3 times more likely to be killed by police than whites.

How much does a person's life cost? Is it different from one or the other? How many categories of people are there? Is the pain of some victims more painful than that of others? Why are some innocent until they prove the opposite, but others until they prove the opposite?

As a result of this systematic racism, police violence is directed against perpetuals. And this violence is funded by all citizens. Who, then, is responsible for the murders committed by the police? An agent who's put his knee on or shot? Or the police chief who orders it like this? Or the president or minister who authorizes it, who covers it? And the media that are trying to justify these actions in some way? Or the judge who designates those responsible as innocent, thus declaring these murders legal? How can the one who has thrown a stone in the protests be more punished to denounce the murders than the one who has committed the murder?

Unfortunately, to be aware of these situations, we do not need to go that far. In the French state, in 2016, the 24-year-old Adama Traore, of African origin, died suffocated at a police station. In the Spanish state, since 1999 there have been 571 cases of police violence and racism in Spain, but only four police officers have been convicted. And if we look towards the Basque Country, the case of Senegalese Elhadji Ndiaye, who died in the Pamplona/Iruña police station in 2016, and the case of young Iñigo Cabacas, killed in Bilbao in 2012 by a Ertzaintza pelotazo, is yet to be clarified. In the CAV alone, between 1960 and 2013, the police killed 94 people, according to the data provided.

Seeing all of this, where are the ethics and human rights that we so often hear? How can we talk about peace or civilisation? What can we do to change all of this and overcome once and for all that great stain that comes from the past? That will take time, but we have to be clear that as a society or as an individual we cannot remain silent. We can't take for granted any of the murders, as normal. If we did so, we would become accomplices. A critical and rigorous attitude is essential to racism, police violence and the impunity of those responsible. Angela Y. As Davis said: “In a racist society, it’s not enough to not be racist, you have to be anti-racist.”