Alex Kane: Echo chambers drowning out any prospect of reasoned debate

He wasn’t a ‘political’ figure or spokesman. He didn’t belong to any of the organisations campaigning against racism in America. He didn’t hand out leaflets at weekends or help out in community groups. He didn’t belong to the Democratic Party. He wasn’t a Rosa Parks-type activist, plugging away for years on end to make a difference to his fellow citizens. He would never have been seen at the shoulder of campaigners like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. The vast majority of people in Minneapolis would have passed him by in the street without a second – or even first – glance.

Yet in death, this unremarkable, unknown man has become the catalyst for a wave of anger and protest sweeping across America. Extraordinarily, the anger and protest isn’t confined to America, either. Protesters have been on the streets and in the parks of France, Brazil, India, Spain, Australia and the United Kingdom. Even in Belfast – which doesn’t usually bother all that much with public protests unrelated to its own circumstances – has seen protests.

What struck me most about the reaction to Floyd’s death was the scale and speed. Nothing appeared to be organised. People, tens upon tens of thousands of them just appeared. Angry people: people who believed that over 50 years after the great civil rights campaigns and legislation of the 1960s they were still not regarded and respected as ‘full citizens’ of the United States. As I say, they would have had no idea who Floyd was, let alone about his prison sentences for violent crime. But that didn’t matter, anyway; because they believed that had Floyd been white he almost certainly would still be alive.