The Effects of George Floyd on American Social Justice Movements
The Effects of George Floyd on American Social Justice Movements
Jacqueline Rose Pipinich
Personal Statement
My name is Jackie Pipinich and I am a baking arts major. English has always been one of my strongest subjects; I love how the platform makes it easier to express myself. The events preceding the Black Lives Matter movement were, to say the least, emotional and impactful. I feel as though this essay was a small way for me to show some solidarity in the events unfolding around us.
On May 25th, 2020, one George Floyd was killed by Officer Derek Chauvin via suffocation. This incident has caused a large shift in Social Justice movements, resulting in acts of protest, artistic expression and the removal of historical landmarks representing confederate values. Floyd was a final tipping point that encouraged the American people to look into the various acts of normalized institutional racism present in our society. The death of George Floyd has had an overall massive impact on American Social Justice movements.
After the reports of Floyd’s death, protests, marches, and gatherings grew almost overnight. Some reports estimate roughly fifteen to twenty-million people have been involved in some sort of protest since that day. To compare, protests in 2018 and early 2019 focused specifically on Black Lives Matter had no notable protests or events, save for a few smaller, local gatherings. In terms of digital movements, the #BlackLivesMatter tag was used an average of 17,000 times from July of 2013 to May of 2018 and #GeorgeFloyd had topped Twitter’s trending chart with over 96,000 mentions. In contrast, the usage of the same tag rose to roughly 47.8 million uses between May 26th and June 7th of 2019. The effect of Floyd’s death had caused an increase of activism over nearly 50 million mentions digitally and about twenty million physically.
A separate effect of Floyd’s death lies in the inspiration for people to begin dismantling structures glorifying confederate figureheads in American history. Since the incident, statues have been removed- either by mob justice or actions taken by local governments. Some examples include: Jefferson Davis (Richmond, VA), John C. Calhoun (Charleston, SC), a confederate monument (Portsmouth, VA), etc. There are roughly 130 similar examples that have occurred across America since Floyd. These statues have often been accepted by historical societies and museums in order to preserve the historical significance without the glorification that comes with the display. The idea of removing an official statue of anyone was hardly mentioned before Floyd kindled the inspiration for people to incite mob justice against statues representing America’s more racist phases.
A final development that evolved from Floyd was an increase in public art and expression involving the BLM movement. A notable example of this would be the actions of Mayor Muriel Bowser, who commissioned a piece to be painted in light of the new protests. The bright