Photographer Tim Druck has captured an image of a line of white women standing between demonstrators and police during a stand-off in Louisville, Kentucky. The move was apparently to protect black demonstrators from further police aggression.
The women were said to have gathered after a Black Lives Matter leader, Chanelle Helm, asked white demonstrators to protect victims of systemic racism. Druck said that they individuals didn’t have to be persuaded and immediately made moves to go and stand in formation. The caption Druck put alongside the image he posted online stated:
“This is a line of white people forming a barrier between Black protestors and the police. This is love. This is what you do with your privilege.”
Druck later explained in an interview with the Courier-Journal that:
“She was asking for white folks to use their privilege, and put their bodies between police and the other demonstrators. And people responded. They didn’t, they didn’t need to be convinced. Everybody willingly and enthusiastically did it.”
While the current spate of protests, some of which have descended into rioting, across the US have been sparked by the death of George Floyd the protest in Louisville, Kentucky is also fuelled by the death of Breonna Taylor. Taylor a 26 year old African-American woman who worked as a paramedic was shot dead in her home by police on a drugs raid. It later transpired that the police had entered the wrong address before shooting Miss Taylor 8 times.
This is Breonna Taylor.
— Kristen Clarke ☎️866-OUR-VOTE (@KristenClarkeJD) May 12, 2020
She was a beloved Louisville EMT and a nurse who was fatally shot by police in her own home. She was hit 8X after cops entered w/o announcing themselves. A frontline worker, she was just 26 yrs old. Her family deserves justice.#SayHerName #BreonnaTaylor pic.twitter.com/oMrYUDQfR9
Taylor who was in the home with her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was subject to a no-knock search warrant whereby police do not have to declare their entry to a property.
Lawyer Ben Crump, an attorney who represents Taylor’s family, said:
“Do African-Americans have a right to the Second Amendment? Doesn’t he have the right to stand his ground against people who he believes are burglarising his home?”
A post shared by Muchacha Fanzine (@muchachafanzine) on
A further tragic death based on racism and discrimination, which has contributed in the tremendous anger amongst US citizens, is that of Ahmaud Arbery, an African-American jogger. Arbery was murdered by two white men, a father and a son, for no particular reason.
A post shared by Ahmaud Arbery (@irunwithmaud) on
What has been noticeable about the protests across the United States has been the involvement of people from all races uniting together in order to demonstrate their anger against police brutality and racism. The protests have now also spread to other countries with the UK, Paris, Amsterdam and Stockholm all witnessing large gatherings despite fears over coronavirus. In Greece, the US embassy was attacked by protestors after a largely peaceful march in Athens.
Photo credits: Tim Druck
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