Mahira Khan reached out to Hasan Minhaj on Twitter to thank him for hi important #BlackLivesMatter message.
George Floyd was a black, American man who was pronounced dead shortly after a white, American police officer dug his knee into Floyd’s neck and continued to do so while Floyd cried, “I can’t breathe.” Floyd’s only mistake was he used counterfeit money at a local Minneapolis store. Now you may be asking yourself why such the police officer performed such a harsh action when the crime was little to nothing in that city? The answer is racism and the fact it still exists today is part of a bigger issue.
People from all around the world have spoken up about this incident and hundreds of similar cases in the past which include racism, police brutality, and lack of human rights.
Since this event, people from all walks of life have begun to take a stand and to be part of the change towards a more equal and fair system. The black community has faced many injustices and truly disgusting actions towards them, but now is the time for everyone to come together to take the extra step and change that.
Celebrities like Indian-American comedian Hasan Minhaj have spoken up and shared their thoughts on recent events.
Minhaj starts his video off by speaking on the recent events and how quickly the conversation went from the heinous murder of George Floyd to the riots and looters out on the streets. After the video of George Floyd’s murder went viral, the world came together to have a bigger conversation about racism, to sign petitions, to donate, and to protest. While many protests remained violence-free and peaceful, others involved riots, fires, vandalism, and looting. The conversation turned from into #blacklivesmatter to how dangerous the protests have become.
He went on to show how instead of accepting blame on behalf of police officers everywhere, police officers have turned the protests into a war. In the videos circulating social media, police officers can be seen punching, hitting, and spitting on protesters. In some protests, things got worse when police officers started to teargas and arrest protesters for no visible reason. Police brutality has continued through the protests which started as a means to end police brutality, how does this make sense?
The next point he makes in his video is how the desi community only highlights successful black men and women, but treat the average black person poorly.
Desi people are just as racist towards black people of our communities, including the Muslim community. We refuse to pray side by side with them, we refuse to marry our daughters to black men, and we call the cops on suspicious black men using counterfeit money. Now is the time not to consider ourselves as allies due to the closeness of our skin colors, but to educate ourselves and to become anti-racist.
We were into the United States due to the Civil Rights Movement, which allowed black people the right to freedom. After the Civil Rights Movement was passed, the Immigration Act of 1965, which allowed people like us to live, study, and work in the United States. Our history in the United States is based on freedom that black people helped us achieve.
He urges our community to do more than sharing a black square on Instagram or signing petitions.
He asks for us to donate our time and money by offering free healthcare to protesters, help black people get online, and work pro bono for protesters since we have been able to get good educations and become doctors, IT technicians, and lawyers. We can also make a difference by legislating and voting.
Hasan Minhaj’s video was powerful and helped educate many people of our community and Mahira Khan was very appreciative and thanked him for this.
This is so powerful. Thank you for this ! @hasanminhaj https://t.co/fSOzGjlTNd
— Mahira Khan (@TheMahiraKhan) June 5, 2020
While the BLM movement is not as popular and widely known in Pakistan, it is still important to educate ourselves and to stay up to date with what is happening around the world.
Black people were brought into the United States for the purpose of slavery. They were used, abused, and beat since the beginning of their history in the United States. It took years of protests, the Underground Railroad, murders, and injustices until the Civil Rights Movement finally gave them the same basic freedom as their white counterparts.
Even though on paper, black people have freedom, racism is still a huge issue today. Innocent black men, women, and children have been murdered, beaten, accused, and wrongfully accused because of the color of their skin. Other races have privileges and were brought into the United States to help create a measure of a standard within education and the workforce, not to be slaves.
The Black Lives Movement is important because black people are still suffering and while many of us aren’t openly racist, we have never tried to be anti-racist and this is what we need. We need to speak up about these matters, we need to educate ourselves on racism and the steps we should actively be taking to stop it, we need to sign the right petitions to get our voices heard, and we need to be donating to the right causes so black people can take advantage of the resources we have readily available.
Watch Hasan Minhaj’s entire video here:
https://twitter.com/hasanminhaj/status/1268391854845898757
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Cover image via colorado.edu/superstarsbio.com
