It says in our Declaration of Independence that we Americans have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. George Floyd’s civil right to life was tragically and unlawfully taken away by the excessive force of an overzealous policeman.

Like we Americans don’t have enough to deal with by trying our level best (mask wearing and proper social distancing) to remain alive till the COVID–19 pandemic passes, and/or a cure for the virus becomes available. Now comes another unnecessary police takedown that administered excessive force on the victim’s throat for eight minutes and 46 seconds, culminating in the black man’s death. Not only that, but the officer keep his foot (knee) on the gas (victim’s neck) even after Floyd became unconscious!

Of course riots resulted at the injustice of it all. Nothing new for view that we Americans haven’t witnessed many times before. Yet, we still don’t seem to be making significant progress in administering police force equally––without being color conscious.

Isn’t it bad enough that severe victims of COVID–19 usually have to resort to ventilators to breath. Now, just when we are out and about opening up America again, we (unfortunately, predominately people of color) have to keep an sharp eye out (again) for any enforcer of the law that gets overly zealous, exhibiting “I can’t breath” excessive force to an already controlled captive.

It’s double jeopardy to come out of sheltering-in-place too soon–especially if you’re an African American. Moreover, African Americans comprise 33% of the COVID patients; yet, are only 13% of the American population.

Excessive police force (especially towards blacks) and environmental pollution share at least two things in common: you can die from both through lack of oxygen. The second from breathing too much impure air; the first from not being able to breath at all. The second case scenario is a slow death march because of the continuing infiltration of pollutants in our environment due to global warming. But in the second case, death can come quickly (less than nine minutes for George Floyd pleading, “Please, I can’t breath,” to a restraining police officer, who refused his begging calls to let him breathe).

My wish and prayer is that Americans (our present administration especially) would take global warming as serious as African Americans take the injustices of police enforcement upon their kind. Enforcement injustices of blacks affect approximately 13% of our America population, which is African Americans. Global warming affects all of mankind regardless of race, creed, or color. Mankind is surrounded by a global community. What affects one country, affects all. Coronavirus just happens to be responsible for reinforcing the fact that the continued existence of human lives depends upon how we interact within the togetherness we all commonly share–whether we like it or not.

PS: I chose a black and white image of George Floyd to accentuate the squeezing of life (color) out of him. And I pixelated his image to represent a far greater spectrum of humankind that falls into the category of being to poor to matter to the well-off and established.