The Only Justice for George Floyd Is To Finally Abolish Slavery in the U.S.

“I can’t breathe,” he pleaded. For several minutes, George Floyd lie handcuffed and pinned to the ground by a white Minneapolis police officer kneeling on his neck.

“Please,” he begged. The officer wouldn’t relent. By the time an ambulance arrived at the scene, Floyd was unresponsive.

As much of the nation erupts in outrage about these latest episodes of anti-Black violence, many are asking “what do I do?” They want to know how to make the killings stop.

But the truth is that murders like Floyd’s will never truly become a relic of the past until the U.S. finally abolishes slavery.

One of the greatest myths about slavery in America is that it ended.

I’m aware that one-hundred-fifty-five years ago, President Abraham Lincoln declared enslaved people living in states in “actual armed rebellion against the authority and government of the United States” to be free.

However, the Constitutional amendment we’re taught ‘abolished’ slavery (number 13) actually set the stage for it to continue. Far from categorically prohibiting the practice, it changed the provisions so that it could be justifiable under certain conditions: namely, as punishment for crime.