George Floyd and Africa: Back to the crime scene

This article explores the new global configuration that coalesced in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. It provides a rather unique and provocative interpretive framework that teases out the meaning of his death, and that of countless other Black victims, through the longue durée—that is, the rhizomatic growth of anti-Black racism in America and elsewhere. In examining the arsenal that weaponizes anti-Black racism, by allowing police brutality against Blacks to run amok and become systemic, the article’s main argument points to Africa as the crime scene, and the essentialization and demotion of Black people as the motive of the crime.