Is Darnella Frazier's cellphone video of the murder of George Floyd by a White police officer on a street in Powderhorn, Minneapolis, on the evening of May 25, 2020, just another among countless visual images of such arbitrary killings of Black men, and of some Black women—such as Breonna Taylor, to say her name—that today regularly circulate through social media, mass media, and collective memory? Seasoned observers intone that such images at first attract intense emotional reactions of varying sorts, and, from those moved to grief and anger, especially those close to the deceased and those from the locality, deeply felt declarations of eternal remembrance. Then, like points of light in a galaxy, or, perhaps more accurately, graves in an infinite cemetery, they disappear into what might be called the national palace of social amnesia—or, if they had international currency, into the no-place of world forgetting (Fig. 9.1).

Videodeath Comes to Powderhorn

The videodeath of George Floyd may be different. As it went viral, it shocked even those numbed by the normalities of structural violence. Within hours, protests erupted in Minneapolis. Within days, they had spread to cities across the United States. In less than a week, in cities, suburbs, and country towns around the world, people marched against this murder, against racial repression in the United States, and, increasingly, against racism and other forms of unfreedom in their own communities. In cities and country towns throughout Australia, for example, thousands marched to protest this killing, the killing of Blacks in the United States, and the national shame of Indigenous deaths in custody. The incarceration rate for Indigenous Australians is over 10 times that of non-Indigenous Australians. Between 1987 and 1991, an extensive Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths was held and made several recommendations to alleviate an already dire situation. Since then, 470 have died, among whom 40% did not receive the medical care required. No police or corrections officers have been convicted of any wrongdoing. While shooting, beating, or choking is the most common kind of police violence leading to death in the United States, in Australia, a culture in which guns are largely absent, “allowing to die” is a frequent cause: omission, inattention, and the refusal of care.