Yohuru Williams, founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas, spoke to MPR News on racial changes in Minnesota, looking at the last five years since the death of George Floyd. He was joined by Kiana Cox, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center who authored a recent study about policing since 2020.
From the Interview with MPR News:
Host: Yohuru, from your perspective and your work, again, as the Founding Director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas, what do you feel or what do you think or take away from these results that Kiana is describing?
Williams: Not terribly surprised because our work really centers on the importance of historical recovery and looking to the past to get some insight on what we can expect or what we might predict as a result of what we've seen historically. And in moments like this, 2020 seemed unique to a lot of people, but I imagine, in terms of how it was conceived of as a racial reckoning, it felt a lot like 1963, in the aftermath of the March on Washington, or 1965, in the aftermath of the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, this optimism that came from its increased attention around issues of racial justice, but inevitably there is a backlash.
And I think what we've seen in the five years since the murder of George Floyd is this encroaching backlash against not only the attention that was paid to issues of racial justice, beginning with the violence that was visited on George Floyd's body, but the very things that Kiana was talking about in terms of overall improvements to Black lives beyond police violence. That this racial reckoning began, for many people, with the killing of George Floyd by those Minneapolis Police Officers led by Derek Chauvin.
