Page 162 - COVID Consortium Journal - An Edited Collection of Student Art and Writing

“Stereotype Threat” by Khadiga Ghirani, Vanguard High School

George’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. He was saying he couldn’t breathe,
he was moaning, and yet, the officer didn’t get off. It’s like he was torturing
somebody before he killed them. It was like he did because George was just
there. And he thought he could get away with it.
If we analyze this as playing the game Cops and Robbers, the Cop is now the
murderer, the bad guy, because he decided to add another rule to the game. He
decided that instead of catching the robber, instead of sending them to jail, he
decided to add a rule to let him kill. Officer Chauvin killed with impunity. He
thought he could get away with taking a life without getting punished. Who
knows if he specifically thought that people of color were not as good as him.
But if he could take a life that easily then I think he had some idea of what
he was doing. It’s awful how Chauvin automatically used violence on George
Floyd. He was labeling Mr. Floyd as a mosquito. If a mosquito lands on you, you
squish it. Or even if it’s near you. Horribly, that’s what Chauvin did to another
human. And Chauvin must have associated George with a bug, because oth-
erwise, how could he kill so easily. Squish George like a bug. Did he have any
idea about George’s life. That he was trying to turn it around? Why are Cops
automatically the good guys? Why are Robbers automatically bad? It’s because
white supremacy is used to add more rules. People like Chauvin automatically
assume that Black people are less than human, and that somehow it’s okay to
kill them like bugs.

George wasn’t asked where he got the money. Whether he knew it was coun-
terfeit or not. He was just killed. And as a cop, the officer’s duty was to protect
all people. And yet he didn’t. He killed. He did something truly, remarkably
evil, and unforgiving. He took away an innocent life. By innocent, I don’t mean
George wasn’t doing anything wrong. But by innocent, I mean he didn’t kill
anybody. I mean he did nothing to deserve that. He was killed because of the
color of his skin. Because as a Black person doing something wrong is 5 times
worse in some people’s eyes. The cop became the murderer, the bad guy. Any-
body see a hypocrite? I think that while cops have been given the “good guy”
role, really, people can’t be grouped as “good guys” or “bad guys” because that
doesn’t describe everything that every person is. It’s more complicated than
that. . . . police will never bring both sides the feeling of safety as long as some
people continue to abuse their power.

Looking at life as a game of Cops and Robbers you can see that Amy Cooper
didn’t take a life. But she, given the label Cop since the moment she was born,
abused that, and took away the title she had as automatically a “good person.”

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