The Death of George Floyd: Bending the Arc of History Toward Justice for Generations of Children.

Abstract

* Abbreviations: COVID-19 — : coronavirus disease 2019 PART — : Pediatricians Against Racism and Trauma We have seen the horrifying cell phone and surveillance video footage of the murder of George Floyd replay again and again in the last few weeks. The aftermath begs the question why this particular murder of a Black man by a police officer has sparked the international response so few have received.1 Scores of other Black men, women, and children have been killed by police since the 2014 murder of Eric Garner in New York City, in which he suffered an illegal chokehold and uttered the devastating refrain “I can’t breathe,” and countless others have been murdered over generations. These cases represent just the tip of the iceberg because these murders happened to be recorded on bystander cell phone video or police webcam capture. Moreover, it is the tip of another iceberg because these cases represent modern-day lynchings. The lynching of Black people in the United States was routine before the “civil rights era,” when there were major legal advances to change the treatment of Black Americans in this country. However, it was not until February 2020 that federal legislation, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, was passed by the House of Representatives but is still … Address correspondence to Benard P. Dreyer, MD, FAAP, Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, New York University Grossman School of Medicine and Department of Pediatrics, Bellevue Hospital Center, 550 First Ave, New York, NY 10016. E-mail: benard.dreyer{at}nyulangone.org