Two degrees and reparation

摘要

AFTER GEORGE FLOYD died on the ground outside Cup Foods, in Minneapolis, last May, millions of Americans who joined the largest civil-rights demonstrations in the country's history were in no doubt that he had been murdered. They had watched a horrific video, lasting more than nine minutes, which they believed showed a homicide taking place. They observed how Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, restrained Mr Floyd by kneeling on his neck. They heard how bystanders, including a nine-year-old child, said repeatedly that the policeman was killing him, and begged him to stop. Fellow police officers, and others watching live but remotely, voiced concern. Most powerfully, they heard how, handcuffed and prostrate, Mr Floyd himself warned that his life was slipping away. He told Mr Chauvin he could not breathe. Among his dying words were offers of love to his family.