CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Local Betoota Grove woman, Bronwyn Cashman (33) actually didn’t know much about this whole black guy getting killed in Minnesota story until she stumbled across the news tonight while channel surfing.
All of a sudden, she was deep in a online news rabbit hole.
As Bronwyn quickly learnt, there has been reports of civil disorder right across America over the last five night, ever since the murder of a black Minneapolis man named George Floyd was caught on video.
The footage showed Floyd begging for his mother as a white Minneapolis policeman knelt on his neck until his last breath in broad sunlight on May 25th.
from Los Angeles to Miami to Chicago – protests marked by chants of “I can’t breathe” — a rallying cry echoing the dying words of George Floyd — began peacefully before turning unruly as demonstrators blocked traffic, set fires and clashed with riot police, some firing tear gas and plastic bullets into crowds.
Bronwyn says as someone who reads the Courier Mail and watches Channel 7 news every night, she can’t believe she missed all of this.
“This is crazyyy” she says in her half-interested white girl tone.
“Full on riots”
But as Bronwyn researches the global incident even more, she has found that these growing protests against black deaths in custody aren’t limited to just Minnesota.
“I didn’t realise how many cities were protesting. I know I can’t really speak to their experience because I’m from a completely different country, but I think they’ve just had enough”
“I can’t believe that black people can literally die at the hands of the police in America and not one officer gets charged for murder. It boggles the mind”
“They really need to have a Royal Commission into it or something”
“I’m just so glad we don’t have that over here”
Our reporters then asked Bronwyn if she felt that maybe there are a few parallels between America’s current riotous distrust in law enforcement and what happened in the Queensland Aboriginal community of Palm Island on Friday the 14th of November, 2004.
“Oh, what?” she Bronwyn.
“I’ve never been to Dubai. My sister lived there for a bit, her husband is pilot with Emirates. They loved it, but no, I’ve never seen the Palm Jumeirah. I hear it’s beautiful”
When asked if she knew that more than 400 Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people have died in custody since the 1991 Royal Commission in to deaths in custody – without one officer charge – Bronwyn became confused.
“Wait are we still talking about Dubai?” she asked.
“Like, I didn’t know they had an Aboriginal population there.”
“Apparently it gets really hot in Summer haha”
