My experience at George Floyd protests

The last couple weeks have been hectic, to say the least. On Tuesday, May 26, I woke up to my mother and sister watching CNN. I was taken aback. I can count on one hand how many times my sister has watched the news. She tends to avoid the news, as being tuned into the deaths and atrocities that take place every day disturbs her.

The last time I saw my sister watch the news was at 10 p.m. on Saturday, July 13, 2013, when George Zimmerman was acquitted of both second-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of Florida teen Trayvon Martin. She was distraught. 

I knew that if she was watching the news again, it had to be because another black life was taken. I was right. I saw the 10-minute video of George Floyd’s death broadcast on CNN. I saw Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis police officer, put his knee on Floyd’s neck. I heard the cries of the bystanders to let him breathe. I heard Floyd’s own cries that he could not breathe. I saw the life drain out of his body and the nonchalant look on Chauvin's face. It was at that moment when something inside of me snapped. I saw it in the eyes of my mother and my sister. I knew if my family felt it, the world felt it as well. 

Every black person who watched that video felt something. They felt anger. They – we – look back at over 400 years of inequality and see that we are still being treated like animals. Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd are a few of the names we had to add to the seemingly endless list of those murdered by the police. We are sick of adding to the list. We are tired of being treated as unequal. We are sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Martin Luther King Jr. called riots, “the language of the unheard.” We have been unheard by white people since my ancestors were brought here in 1619. Now we speak a language that white people can understand. We are taking to the streets to protest the injustices in this country. We are protesting the systemic racism embedded in our society. We are protesting the police systems of oppression. 

Night after night, my family and I watched people in various states riot and protest in the name of the Black Lives Matter movement. We saw the videos of how the police treated innocent and peaceful protesters. We saw the videos of the cops inciting riots and breaking storefront windows to fuel the looting. We saw the videos of police officers loading thousands of bricks into empty parking lots for rioters to use as weapons. We saw the true colors of most police officers in America .

We also saw the good in a few cops. We saw them march with protesters and hug protesters. We saw them take a knee in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. It gave me some hope. 

I myself went to a couple protests on Long Island. Both were peaceful and both helped me realize that I am not alone in all of this. In my town of Massapequa, which is predominantly white, people, for the most part, came out to help support the movement. In the second protest, my sister and I were the only black people in the crowd. When I noticed that I was honestly surprised. Those white protesters, along with my family and I, were met with a crowd of people who were obviously against us. They yelled at us to go home and threw profanity and racial slurs at us. I thought that would discourage the white protesters but instead they grew louder. They stood for us. They stood with us. 

In all 50 states, white people are standing for us and with us. All over the world white people are standing with us and standing for us.

It is honestly refreshing.

Nathan Odige is a freshman public relations major from Massapequa, New York.