Essay and artwork by Salem Schreiber Hansen, age 15.
— George Floyd was a father and a citizen intent on bettering himself. He was another person, and another life, and lost it in a murder on May 25, 2020. The officers responsible are Derek Chauvin, Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane, and Tou Thao. Whether by restricting his breathing for nearly eight minutes, and for three minutes after his movement and pulse ceased (Chauvin), restraining him while he suffered (Kueng and Lane), or standing by with the power and ability to stop this (Thao), each person present was responsible. Each person was let off easy.
This was not the first time an unarmed black man said “I can’t breathe” while under the attack of police officers. The first was Eric Garner, a horticulturist and “neighborhood peacemaker” in his New York home. He was choked to death in 2014.
It has been six years, and there has been no change.
With this platform, I would like to quote Lameese Makkawi, someone I have worked with and known since middle school. She is a Black student activist. “The BLM movement has been around for several years but is just now being more recognized. The term “Black Lives Matter” does not discount other lives. However, All Lives Matter, created to work against it, is a protest with no real motive for change.
Makkawi says, “Police were originally created to be “slave catchers.” When an occupation is formed to oppress black people in America, what makes you think that basis will change? We need to defund the police and put money into systems that would lower the crime rate instead of over-policing black communities and viewing melanin as having “suspicious behavior” and give police the power to mercilessly kill black lives for it. There will never be peace without justice!”
My name is Salem Schreiber Hansen, I am 15 years old, and I come from a place of white privilege
I painted the graphic as soon as I heard the news of George Floyd’s murder. Each name in the background is one of a person of color who was wrongfully murdered by police officers in America. I would like to note the fact that the graphic itself is 4.5 ft x 3 ft, and I could not even fit half the list.
The graphic is of Floyd in his life, backgrounded by the dozens of names, and with the phrase “rest in power” across his chest. It is my hope that he will not be another passive symbol, or a fad of forgotten tragedies better left buried to appease those whose lives are not constantly affected by the systemic racism against black people in this country.
Originally, I just created it for the sake of creation. I felt moved to, and as if I should, but there was no real underlying intent. In retrospect, I created it in grief, and shared it because my white voice is able to reach places that Black voices can’t; not because mine is better, or easier to listen to, but because that is the way the world works.
Stay angry. Stay constant. Do not let Black voices fall upon deaf ears.