Washington:There is “no bigger thug” than US President Donald Trump, says an American activist, arguing that racist movements have gathered momentum and extremist groups have been emboldened in the country since the businessman-turned-politician came to office.
Graylan Hagler, a justice advocate from Washington DC, made the remarks during a debate withPress TV’s.While commenting on decades of racial discrimination in the US and the recent ruthless killing of an African American in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Fresh protests erupted across the United States on Thursday night as anger over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed African American, intensified, with some demonstrators gaining access to a police precinct in Minneapolis — the epicenter of the protest — and setting sections of the building on fire.
The 46-year-old Floyd died on Monday after a white Minneapolis police officer used his knee to pin Floyd’s neck to the ground for several minutes as Floyd repeatedly pleaded that he couldn’t breathe. He was soon declared dead at a hospital and the incident sparked widespread protests and prompted calls for criminal charges against the officers.
Trump has called the protesters thugs and threatened that they could be shot.
“This kind of racism and white supremacy context that exists continue to boil over and create death and destruction and clearly people are sick and tired of it and are fighting back,” Graylan Hagler added.
Asked whether US police brutality was becoming systemic especially among minorities, Hagler said, “It’s been part of the founding of this country. Who we have in the White House right now has been the cheer leader of white racist extremist organizations; that’s why they are feeling so emboldened from law enforcement down to militaristic terrorist white groups that exists in the United States.”
“The country was not founded on benevolence; the country was founded on greed and exploitation that basically allowed colonial settlers out of Europe to come into the US and on the back of the free black labor were able to make billions and billions of dollars,” he underlined.
Rallies have turned violent in Los Angeles and Minneapolis, where the police have fired tear gas and rubber bullets against the demonstrators.
