- The George Floyd protests continued to multiply and escalate around the country over the weekend, resulting in everything from peaceful marches to violent clashes in major cities around the US.
- The protests stem from Minneapolis police killing an unarmed man named George Floyd as he was taken into custody last week.
- The protests also come as the coronavirus pandemic is still very much a part of American life, sparking fears of a second wave.
What a profound, unsettling, and historic weekend in America. It was a weekend dominated by massive protests across so many major US cities, plus the imposition of curfews, speculation on how an absent President Trump will respond to all this, peaceful marches mixed with violent clashes, and roundups of protestors across the country. All of it, of course, stemming from the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed man who was restrained, placed on the ground, and who died after one of the cops kept his knee on Floyd’s neck.
If you opened any of your social media apps at all over the past weekend, you’ve already gotten a sampling of what’s been unfolding around the country over the past few days. As the week began, parts of cities from Boston to Los Angeles were still smoldering, as anger reigns in the country’s streets — at a time, we should add, when a pandemic is still underway. At the time of this writing, coronavirus infections in the US have reached almost 1.8 million, and more than 104,000 people have died from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Along those lines, at a news conference on Saturday, Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms stressed that “If you were out protesting last night, you probably need to go get a COVID test this week. There is still a pandemic in America that’s killing black and brown people at higher numbers.” And as we noted over the weekend, there’s a growing fear in general that all the protests and lack of social distancing might spark a new wave of the coronavirus in the US.
Meanwhile, here are some of the unforgettable scenes from around the country this weekend, to illustrate this historic and painful moment in the US:
The nation's capital is legitimately on fire in every direction. This is unreal. pic.twitter.com/hXNJ0LticL
— Samantha-Jo Roth (@SamanthaJoRoth) June 1, 2020
Second protest this weekend. It's not that shocking at how peaceful everyone is when the cops aren't pepper spraying people for walking in a bike lane. #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/EpqkAr8fem
— Faye Holloway – Ohio & ✈️ (@FayeHollowayOH) May 31, 2020
More images from this weekend’s protests: https://t.co/YLqeCMB2hR pic.twitter.com/aeqOAgj2la
— Andrea Woo | 鄔瑞楓 (@AndreaWoo) May 31, 2020
Some photos from the scenes of downtown Colorado Springs during the protest. Tension grew as tear gas, flashbangs & rubber bullets were all put into play by authorities #RipBigFloyd pic.twitter.com/WTwezNpe3u
— Ryan Cruz (@Just_Cruzinn) May 31, 2020
The front of CNN Center in Atlanta was the scene of violent protests on Friday evening that resulted in damage to the front of the building and inside https://t.co/Uz5PsPdoND pic.twitter.com/TsIsu9LCbn
— CNN (@CNN) May 30, 2020
Scenes from this afternoon's protests in downtown Seattle, sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Live updates: https://t.co/ErDrin9cC4 pic.twitter.com/xjZ2dJj2uc
— The Seattle Times (@seattletimes) May 30, 2020
https://twitter.com/dgolderTKC/status/1267160096653692928
Scenes from protests
May 30, 2020
Raleigh, NC#BlackLivesMatter #RaleighProtest #BLM #RaleighNC pic.twitter.com/OZSf7mSsEo— Ethan Styll (@ethanstyll) June 1, 2020
This is so crazy it’s morning now in New Zealand and they’re marching for #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/KxegRDzTK3
— Read Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (@JoshuaPotash) June 1, 2020
As we noted yesterday, protests have continued to multiply in scores of cities around the country. Among the most recent developments as of the time of this writing:
Chinese officials are using the societal unrest here to basically troll the US. Relations between both countries have been fraught for most of the Trump administration’s tenure, and Zhao Lijian, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, said on Monday that “US politicians can mind their own business.” Lijian added that “We hope the US government will take concrete measures to fulfill its obligations under the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination to uphold the legal rights of ethnic minorities.”
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio’s daughter was arrested among protestors over the weekend. Also of note, a number of cops have been disciplined for their actions in responding to protestors this weekend, including a few firings in Atlanta.
