“Racism Is A Global Issue”: Edward Enninful On The Importance Of Cultivating An Anti-Racist Agenda

Last week, I watched a video of George Floyd, the 46-year-old African-American man who died in custody after an officer from the Minneapolis Police Department knelt on his neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. I am going to tell you exactly how it made me feel. First of all, I was wracked by a feeling of intense sadness at the senseless loss of life. Then I saw the video footage of Amy Cooper, the white woman who called the police on Christian Cooper, a black man walking in New York’s Central Park, when he asked her to put her dog on a leash. That made me feel enraged. In the days since, I have been unable to shake a very specific feeling that will be familiar to black people around the world: that my life is somehow disposable. I am lucky to have enormous privilege in my world, but as a man of colour, and as a gay man, I could not escape the sense that it doesn’t matter what you’ve achieved, or what you’ve contributed to society, your life can still feel worthless. When I step out of my door in the morning, to take a walk or to wander alone, I am always aware of increased personal danger because of the colour of my skin. Read more at British Vogue.