PROFILPELAJAR.COM

Leading Cause of Racial Unrest from 2020-2021

Coronavirus

Almost all of the events on this page are directly or indirectly caused by the uprising of a well-known contagious disease^[1], or virus, that is called COVID-19^[2]. Also known as the coronavirus, or COVID for short, was within the top 20 leading causes of death in the world during the early 2020s. The COVID-19 pandemic was a phenomenon that negatively affected the world and unfortunately ended the life of many people. To date, about 704.4 million people around the world have died from the virus^[3]. Coronavirus was one of the leading causes of death in the United States^[4] during this time, with over 111 million confirmed cases to date and killed over 1.2 million people^[5]. Although the rest of the world was affected by the virus, a few countries with the most deaths include; India, a country whose many cause of death from 2020-2023 was coronavirus, had approximately 533,570 deaths^[6], France^[7], which had a death count of approximately 167,642^[8], and Germany, with 183,027 deaths^[9]. Coronavirus was one of the main, if not, the only cause(s) for the racial unrest during these two years. The virus created a spark of racism because some Americans, especially those of Caucasian descent, had a belief that the virus came from Africa. The handful of Americans that shared this belief would now assume that anyone with a darker skin color, they were classified as "contagious" with the virus, even though most of the time they weren't. Therefore, the false belief that all African-American U.S. citizens were infected eventually created a fear of people who were Black, also known as Afrophobia. Even after it was discovered that the virus came from Wuhan, China,^[10] many who . This fear quickly turned into hatred, which then turned into a feeling of anger. This feeling of anger eventually led to an absurd amount of racially-motivated violence, and mostly occurred from the actions of a White police officer, usually having the belief that African-Americans didn't deserve to be treated fairly. The violence ended in many unjustful deaths, serious injuries, aggressive racism, and unfortunate events.

Major Deaths

George P. Floyd

On May 25, 2020, an African-American man named George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Before Floyd's death, he by a 44-year old White police officer who strangled Floyd after.^[11] Floyd died from a variety of factors including drug overdose and past injuries. His death was not what caused a series of protests and riots across the country, but were motivated by the racially motivated and harmful acts that were done by police officers.

Jacob S. Blake

Eddie Sole Jr.

At around two in the afternoon, on August 26, 2020 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, an African-American man by the name Eddie Sole Jr, shot himself in the head as he was being approached by a group of police officers. The objective of the officers was to detain him, but after chasing him around the a local mall, they found Sole Jr, dead, lying on the pavement. Before the case was officially documented, many citizens claimed that Sole Jr had been shot by the officers instead of himself. Word spread fast and there were later protests, most of which were not peaceful, in support of Sole Jr, since all of the protesters believed he was shot by an officer. His death is to be remembered for a long time and no one should ever disrespect the death, whether he was shot or had shot himself.

Aaron J. Danielson

Major Protests

Protests against George Floyd's death

One of the main events that took place during early June of 2020 were protests that focused on fighting against the unlawful death of George P. Floyd^[12]. Floyd was born on October 14th, 1943, He was an African-American man who lived most of his life in Houston,Texas working as a truck driver and as a security guard. Floyd died on May 25th, 2020 and protests, riots and other movements sprung up across the country. The death of George Floyd was something that will be remembered throughout the rest of history. People all across the United States supported Floyd. His death, and the after affects of it, had caused many events around the world to be delayed. Some of the events that were delayed included award ceremonies, graduations, birthday parties, online events, graduation parties, and, video game events, including a large Fortnite^[13] event. These protests did not come to a full stop until August 2020.