Since the death of George Floyd, the Americans attack the ghosts of their past
AFP • 06/13/2020 at 11:44 am

Confederate monuments have been put to the ground, statues of Christopher Columbus beheaded, even "Gone with the Wind" has been sidelined. Since the death of George Floyd, Americans have looked at their history from a different perspective.

"It looks like we have reached a tipping point in building our national narrative," said David Farber, professor of history at the University of Kansas.

"Tens, even hundreds of millions of Americans are struggling with fundamental questions about the less glorious, and - let's be frank - even immoral aspects of our past," he added in an interview with AFP.

The murder of George Floyd, a black forties who was asphyxiated on May 25 in Minneapolis by a white police officer, drove crowds to the streets to demand an end to police violence and racial inequality.

In the process, the demonstrators targeted several monuments erected in honor of generals or politicians from the southern states, who fought against the abolition of slavery during the American Civil War (1861- 1865).

"The symbols of the Confederate states are the most contested," but other parts of the troubled history of the United States have also been attacked, said the academic.

"In New York, the statue of Christopher Columbus was targeted, in New Mexico that of a conquistador considered as a genocidaire in the eyes of the Amerindian peoples", he underlines.

- "Original sin" -
These statues, even if they refer to separate periods, are "linked" because they "embody the violent colonization of the United States," said Laura Edwards, history professor at Duke University.

Christopher Columbus, long celebrated as "the discoverer of America", is today seen as the symbol "of the arrival of Europeans and their claims on land belonging to indigenous peoples which they got rid of by genocide ", she says.

Followed - from the installation of the first settlers - the importation of African slaves, "the original sin that we have never managed to overcome", according to Alan Kraut, historian at American University.

For him, the death of George Floyd served as a "catalyst" for a movement to "reassess" the past already underway.

In the 1950s and 60s, during the great marches for civil rights, the demonstrators already complained of having to "march in streets bearing the names of racists or supporters of white supremacy", also recalls Mr. Farber.

For years, some have been fighting to unbolt Confederate statues and their efforts had gained momentum after a shooting at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, where a white extremist killed nine African-Americans in 2015.

- "Oppression" -
"But the movement is accelerating today because of general outrage," said Andra Gillespie, professor of political science at Emory University.

"We are seeing a re-examination of presuppositions and the questioning of several parts of the story," said Ms. Gillepsie. "The emphasis is on anti-black racism, but all forms of racial oppression are affected."

According to a Pew Institute poll released on Friday, seven in ten Americans of all backgrounds and colors have debated the race issue in the past month. And books on the subject break sales records.

Among other consequences of this collective conscience test, the classic film "Gone with the Wind", released in 1939, was temporarily removed from the HBO Max streaming platform due to its watered-down presentation of slavery .

The Nascar automobile championship, very popular in the South of the United States, also decided to ban Confederate flags on its circuits, which "stunned" Mrs. Edwards: "It is the sport that has most embraced an alleged white southern heritage "; this symbol "was part of their brand," she says.

For Steven White, a political scientist at Syracuse University, since the death of George Floyd, "people have been reflecting on racism throughout American history more broadly".

"An increasing number of white Americans are paying attention to the long-term factors behind the maintenance of racial inequality in the United States," he said.

For him, "the question is whether these changes in public opinion will last".

cl-chp / sdu / roc