Irish Examiner View: Death of George Floyd in police custody shows racism kills in America

George Floyd's lethal treatment, captured on a phone, is just the latest in a shameful litany that shows how very racist America can be.

Artists complete a mural of George Floyd in Minneapolis following his death at the hand of Minneapolis police officers. Photo: Mark Vancleave/Star Tribune via AP.

The cultural differences between America and the rest of the English speaking world are significant and bewildering.

It is, from a liberal, European perspective impossible to comprehend why a society, one that imagines itself a font of justice and democracy, should allow citizens build private armouries that many of today's armies - certainly ours - can only envy.

That foible has inured Americans to gun deaths and it seems reasonable to wonder how many innocent people might have to die in a mass shooting before there is real change on this issue.

The ongoing clashes in Minneapolis over the death on Monday of George Floyd, an unarmed black man killed in police custody highlight another issue incomprehensible on this side of the Atlantic.

Floyd's lethal treatment, captured on a phone, is just the latest in a shameful litany that shows how very racist America can be.

It is tempting to qualify that charge by saying it applies only to a minority but that is impossible as long as police officers are the main players in this ongoing scandal.