Washington, May 26 (FN Representative) The death of George Floyd in police custody in 2020 has brought drastic changes to police practices across the United States at the local level, but the US Congress lacked the political will to introduce more significant changes, US civil rights activists told Sputnik. “A lot of changes were made at the local level, not in Congress. They didn’t have the political will,” Kami Chavis, a former assistant US attorney for the District of Columbia, said. She also noted that the tragic incident helped to achieve some progress on the path to better policing by reviving some old discussions. “There have been changes after George Floyd’s death and the activism that ensued. I do think there were significant differences/changes nationwide. One example is the duty to intervene, and police training and discipline. All these issues were really forced back into the public discourse. And there’s nothing novel about what was discussed and proposed as solutions,” the activist said. Despite the fact that those campaigning for comprehensive criminal justice reform face significant and daunting challenges, there is still some hope for a better future, Chavis said. “I still think we have a long way to go, but it’s a slow and steady road to progress,” she said. Another social activist, Michele Watley, the founder and owner of The Griot Group LLC political consulting company, said that US corporations failed to deliver on their promises to end racism. “The corporations who pledged millions of dollars would say there was a racial reckoning and that the funding they promised was a corrective.
They pledged to increase spending around diversity, equity and inclusion in business spaces. But if you ask Black people – depending on who you ask – they will tell you that this has fallen woefully short,” Watley said. The reckoning was not for Black people, but for those who are aware of racial disparities, discrimination and police abuse but support or ignore that and other racial elements that hold certain segments of the country back, Watley added. One of the reasons behind it, the activist said, is that corporate managers and people of other races do not experience every-day social injustice like Black Americans do. “We have always had to contend with issues of policing, racial equity and criminal justice in regular life. Corporate leaders and other people are not forced to confront these issues so they view it differently. They don’t see policing injustice and racism and disparities in other areas. We can argue if these indicators are markers of progress and whether that progress was insignificant or not,” she said. Watley also said that, following Floyd’s death, between 300 and 400 pieces of legislation had been passed by municipal, city and county officials at the local level, as well as by state lawmakers across the country. In May 2020, a wave of protests and riots against police violence and racial injustice rippled across the United States and other parts of the world. The mass-scale social unrest was sparked by the death of African-American George Floyd, who passed away while a police officer knelt on his neck to detain him in the city of Minneapolis. The tragic incident also sparked heated debates about the US justice system’s treatment of Black people and the need for its reform.