George Floyd’s Murder Changed Americans’ Views on Policing

President Joe Biden likes to recall a conversation he had with Gianna Floyd, George Floyd’s daughter, at Floyd’s funeral last summer. “Daddy changed the world,” she told Biden. If the first step to changing the world is changing people’s minds, Floyd’s murder one year ago did that—though just how much, and with what long-term effects, remains unclear.

In the weeks following Floyd’s May 25, 2020, death in Minneapolis, the country saw an astonishing shift in public opinion. The number of Americans saying that Black people face serious discrimination, holding unfavorable views of the police, and supporting the Black Lives Matter movement spiked in the weeks after his murder. But since that peak, views have tempered somewhat, with support settling below the highs of that summer. Notable shifts persist, but they’re unevenly distributed within the population.

The most significant changes have come among white Americans, with reactions diverging based on partisanship. Black Americans didn’t require any epiphanies on race in the United States: They live it, and polls have long shown that Black people, while hopeful about the future of the country, hold a more negative—or more realistic—view of race relations. CONTINUED

David A. Graham, The Atlantic


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