2020 will be a memorable one for numerous reasons—among them the national reckoning on race triggered by the death of George Floyd. (article available here)
Video footage of Floyd's death on Memorial Day after being pinned with a knee to the neck by a white Minneapolis officer shocked the nation, galvanizing Black Lives Matter protests in places across the U.S. and abroad.
They served as a wake-up call for many about the reality of police brutality and racial injustice in America, prompting the shifting of funds from police departments in some cities to social services programs. Yet the demonstrations did little to stop Black people disproportionately dying at the hands of police officers.
According to Mapping Police Violence, officers have killed 1,066 people in 2020—more than 28 percent of them Black, despite Black people making up only 12 percent of the U.S. population.