What's happened?
It all started on the evening of May 25 in Minneapolis. The police received a call from an employee of a small grocery store: supposedly one of the customers paid for the purchase of fake banknotes. The officers who arrived at the call quickly found the suspect – they turned out to be a black man named George Floyd. The police pushed him out of the car parked across the road from the store, and shook it into handcuffs.
Then several more officers arrived at the crime scene. They tried to load Floyd into service transport, and then … versions of the parties diverge. The Police Department said he resisted during the arrest; Eyewitnesses say that there was nothing like this – and the record (several people shot what happened on the video) confirm this. Nevertheless, the man was laid face in asphalt. One of the police officers, Derek Shovin, put his knee on his throat to press it to the ground.
Washington Post has compiled a detailed chronology of the incident
Floyd prayed for mercy. In the video you can hear how he repeated: “The stomach hurts. The neck hurts. Everything hurts. … [I need] water. Please. Please. I can't breathe, an officer. I can't breathe. I can’t breathe, ”however, the police simply dismissed these words. A few minutes later the man lost consciousness. The cops called an ambulance, although they did not clean the knee from the neck – apparently, just in case, just in case. Passers -by, standing nearby, seriously worried about his life (Floyd flowed from the nose) and noted that the man was clearly disconnected, that he needed to check his pulse, but everything is to no avail.
As a result, the doctors were loaded onto the stretcher of already dead George Floyd. According to the police report to open the body, he died himself-well, as it usually happens if it is long to crush someone's neck. But an independent examination, which was later conducted at the request of the Floyd family, confirmed that he had died all the same from strangulation.
George Floyd's Assistance Fund exceeded the assigned bar almost ten times
Why did this result in protests throughout the country?
In the States, in principle, there are big problems with the arbitrariness of security forces; This case is far from the first and not the last. Why is there so much noise around him? If in short, then by coincidence. Firstly, the United States still ranks first in terms of incidence of coronavirus. The economy at a prolonged peak, more than forty million people are sitting without work, protests against quarantine regularly flare up.
Secondly, earlier this year has already died out a few similar scandals. In January, the Louisville police shot the 26-year-old nurse Breonn Taylor in her own house-law enforcement officers suspected that her dwelling was used as a transshipment point for drug trafficking. During the search, of course, they did not find any drugs. And in February, two men shot 25-year-old Ahmad Arberi, who simply went on a run; The killers were arrested only in May, two months later. How so? Just one of them turned out to be a former police officer, and the authorities had to change the prosecutors several times – they refused the case because they personally knew the suspect.
Sculpture "serve and protect" in Salt Lake City before and after protests
In other words, the last six months folk discontent grew, and the death of George Floyd was the last straw. The police killed him at the crowd of witnesses, the murder fell on the video, and from there to the Internet. The very next day, May 26, people (importantly, all skin flowers) organized a peaceful protest from a police station where Shovin and his partners worked. The audience demanded justice: to punish the officer, to investigate other cases of police violence, to change the law, thanks to which the police are responsible for the murder, to cut out the financing of the police.
But local authorities ignored the demands of the townspeople – and the peaceful protest gradually went to the pogroms that spread throughout the country. Now they are trying to suppress them with tear gas and rubber bullets. The police insist that the people first began to destroy private property, breaking the window of the car repair shop near the site. Demonstrators say that it was the work of a provocateur, sent specifically to give the authorities an occasion to disperse the protest by force. Judging by the video, everything really looks like that.
Before everything resulted in pogroms, the demonstrations were really peaceful
But be that as it may, shortly after the start of the protests, many cities introduced a commandant hour, and in twenty -four states a contingent of the National Guard unfolded. In large cities of the country, chaos has been going on for a week for a week: arson, looting, vandalism and regular skirmishes with the police.
But why the whole world speaks of this? Is this not the internal problem of the United States?
Protests received widest publicity thanks to the Internet. Twitter literally exploded: the hashtag BlacklivesMatter escaped into world trends, people publish hundreds of videos on which the police are not embarrassed to apply force to demonstrators. Hundreds of celebrities and the media, including Rihanna, the Radiohead and, suddenly, Nickelodeon TV channel, joined the Blackout Tuesday campaign – that is why you could observe many black squares in your tape.
The police urged citizens to report to the protesters in a special application, but the “anonymous Capop-divisions” from all over the world spamm with his videos and photographs of idols
Moreover, demonstrations rose in the cities of other countries. London, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, Helsinki – even single pickets are held in Moscow. People take to the streets not only because of the death of one black man-they protest against racism and police arbitrariness in general. And this is a rather universal problem. If you add hundreds of thousands of protesters around the world and an extensive reaction to the media, it turns out that this action is one of the largest international protests in history.
Video of the procession near the London Hyde Park
It is not surprising that the game industry did not stand aside. Sony , To the discontent of many, changed the date of the presentation PlayStation 5. IGN and PC Gamer postponed their online presentations, which were supposed to replace E3 2020 ; CD Projekt Red postponed news on Cyberpunk 2077 , The fourth season Modern Warfare left for a non -anons date. Electronic Arts donated $ 1 million to the Fund for Legal Protection and Education ( itch.Io announced the sale in support of the same organization), and Humble Bundle created a fund for helping black developers.
But why postpone releases and presentations? How this will generally help protests? And why should I suffer due to the fact that someone is striking in the USA?
There are two main reasons for. First – Purely Practical , And she is entirely tied to PR. First of all, no one wants to call the audience to have fun when the attention of the public is riveted to such large -scale events. Not a single large gaming company in their sound mind will be at such a risk that a fair accusation of a “feast during the plague” and a boycott in response. From such a blow to reputation, then not to wash for a long time for a long time.
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This is not to mention the fact that right now the consumer core of the industry – people from 18 to 35 years old – protest on the streets, and not sits at the computer. Yes, everyone is not taking part in the demonstrations, but there are many of them. Those who stay at home or live in countries where there are no protests, can now be busy with online activism or reading news. But any advertising campaign should cover as possible an audience as possible – in this regard it is easier to wait until everything is settled.
The second reason – Already clean ethical. Publishers do not specifically wedge into the news agenda so as not to distract the audience from protesting events. For example, if, after the PS5 presentation, part of the tape were scored by news and impressions, it would be more difficult for activists to display their tags and information to the world trends of Twitter. And the extra money, which an ordinary player could lower the console or the purchase of new games, he may now decide to sacrifice the assistance funds for the victims. From the point of view of morality, this is a very adult and correct act – in the future it will probably be remembered more than once with a kind word.
And from the point of view of PR, this is a gorgeous opportunity to show that publishers understand their progressive consumers: they say, we are for everything good and against everything bad. How much sincerity in these words is to decide. There, Activison Blizzard Already spoke out in support of the demonstrators; True, she was immediately remembered by the Hong Kong incident.
It is very convenient when you can voice a profitable social position, and do not risk profits.
