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Nine minutes and 29 seconds have become a symbol of systematic racism in the United States.
White police officer Derek Chauvin held the knee to George Floyd’s neck with all his weight for a full nine minutes and 29 seconds – until he died. The video of his assassination sparked a wave of protests, not only in the US, but in many other countries as well.
For several months, nine minutes and 29 seconds also symbolized the hope that the United States would finally radically combat police violence against people of color and make the long-delayed police reform necessary.
Neither reform nor stricter gun ownership laws
But two years later there is nothing left of that hope. No police reform has been done, gun laws have not been tightened. On the contrary. The direction the US is heading does not promise good things. Not only in the fight against systematic racism, but also for the protection of women’s rights and LGBTQ, the general protection of minorities.
The danger to the country is multidimensional and comes from above – from the Supreme Court. Despite the political differences and all the polarization that has characterized the US from the beginning, judges do not respond to their party affiliation but to the independence of the courts. The institution has always been before politics. But that changed with appointments by former President Donald Trump. And this has dramatic proportions, because judges are appointed by the current president for an unlimited term, for life.
Stopping abortion is just the beginning
The brutal expression of this is the expected repeal of the nationwide right to abortion, which has existed since 1973. This is not a case law, but only a political calculation. Evangelicals are rewarded with this abortion ban in order to strongly support the Republican Party side.
Laws are written in such a way as to open up the possibility of repealing other liberal laws as well. Many fear LGBTQ rights could be affected and gay marriages could be in order. All of this is involved in a campaign that raises the fundamental question of how the United States intends to define America in the future.
War between cultures
Textbooks dealing with racism will be banned. Parents will be deprived of the right to support their children in finding their sexual identity if a person is not heterosexual. From the outside it all seems perhaps like an absurd madness run by federal states ruled by Republican conservatives. But they are not.
The brutal truth is that reactionary forces have consistently held important positions in various courts for decades, in order to win this cultural war in the courtrooms and not depend on the results of democratic elections. Because most in the country already live with different values - and want to continue to do so in the future.
The brutal truth is that reactionary forces have consistently held important positions in various courts for decades, in order to win this cultural war in the courtrooms and not depend on the results of democratic elections. Because most in the country already live with different values - and want to continue to do so in the future.
Infiltration in institutions
People who have opposed these developments in recent years are tired and exhausted. They have lost hope. Nor did the strong Black Lives Matter movement lead to police reform after the assassination of George Floyd – who or what can do it?
The United States is at an important crossroads. And the rest of the Western world must prepare for the infiltration of these forces from within, into institutions that should uphold the values that America once represented. Even worse – in institutions they are already infiltrated in large parts./DW
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