George Floyd: Did Black Lives Matter fail?

Washington, D.C.'s Black Lives Matter Plaza had its mural removed in March

(Image credit: Getty Images)

George Floyd's murder sparked "the racial reckoning that wasn't," said Nia-Malika Henderson in Bloomberg. This week marked five years since Floyd's murder by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. Footage of Floyd's death, with Chauvin kneeling on his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds while Floyd gasped "I can't breathe" ushered in a Black Lives Matter movement that "galvanized millions to push for racial progress." White people started speaking about the impact of racism, while companies rushed to announce DEI initiatives. "Buildings, schools, and roads were renamed. Statues came down." But many of the initiatives promoted by the movement, like police reform, never came to fruition. The number of people killed by police has increased every year since 2020, and the looting that coincided with some protests enabled Republicans to portray a national, multiracial uprising as a race riot. Some conservatives now even claim Chauvin didn't murder Floyd and have called on President Trump to pardon him. For a brief, inspiring moment in our history, Black Lives Matter seemed to be a turning point. But a backlash fueled by fear helped return Trump to office on a wave of "white identity politics."

We should be "grateful we escaped a dangerous societal overhaul," said Mike Gonzalez in The Wall Street Journal. Floyd's death was "a tragedy that Marxists manipulated into a revolutionary moment" that saw 2,385 looting incidents and 624 arson incidents. "The nation fell into a trance," with corporations and cultural institutions "pledging obeisance to the new creed." A "mass delusion" portrayed America as "an 'oppressive' nation gripped by 'systemic racism,' whose reigning ideology was 'white supremacy.'" Fortunately, "America fought back."

Floyd's murder was "a national shame," not a delusion, said Nekima Levy Armstrong in USA Today. Still, much of 2020's "momentum has quietly evaporated." Corporate promises of diversity and inclusion have been abandoned. When the protests faded, "an army of reactionaries went to work," said Will Bunch in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Instead of racial progress, we got "a Trump-led white backlash." The words "diversity" and "racism" have been demonized and banned. Even Washington, D.C.'s Black Lives Matter Plaza has been scrubbed clean of its bright yellow letters, erasing one of the movement's most lasting symbols. In the current climate of fear, retribution, and repression, it's "almost impossible to imagine how the spark of positive energy that swept America five years ago could be reignited."