The wave of protests caused by Floyd's death and the social unrest it sparked will almost certainly ebb in the days following the transportation of his body to his grave in a horse-drawn carriage, almost with signs of a state burial for a national hero.
It will take days, weeks or months before the lasting catalytic impact of his death can be properly assessed. But already, reforming the police to eradicate racism in the ranks after an endless list of deaths of African-American men in detention is now a political flaw in Washington, as Abby Phillip of CNN pointed out.
Senate Republicans, already hailing the November elections with concern and watching their President launch racial rhetoric as mixed crowds marched, quickly prepared their own police reform bill after Democrats acted first .
The move reflected rapidly evolving social currents after an extraordinary period when a peaceful nationwide uprising finally brought a pandemic to the background once in the century.
The crowded streets of American cities in support of the Black Lives Matter movement reminded us that change only really comes to America on the backs of an excited and insistent population.
At another time, things could have been different. But in a season of sickness and fear, the power of grassroots sentiment has underscored the power of humanity to write its own destiny, and perhaps it has actually grown in intensity as outlet after weeks of coronavirus shutdown.
A global symbol
There are many reasons to doubt Rodney Floyd's prediction.
The country's desperate policy and the retreat from the past against the moments when racial progress was forged offer lessons of caution. Yet when the civil rights representative, Representative John Lewis, declares that he has never seen racially mixed crowds marching for justice, as more white citizens than ever walk metaphorically in the shoes of their African brothers. Americans, it is clear that a mystical political force is at stake.
In a strange way, the death of Floyd is also a sign of the undiminished cultural relevance of the country abroad, despite a president "America First" who alienated many of his friends.
In France, the death of Floyd changed the policies that many cases of police brutality against French people of color could not. Restrictions used by arresting officers are now prohibited. The suddenly ubiquitous face of Floyd stands out from the murals of Kenya, the West Bank and, in a historic confluence alluding to the power of change, of a preserved section of the Berlin Wall. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau struggled for 21 mute minutes when asked to comment on the sight of security forces chasing protesters outside a photo session of President Donald Trump outside an iconic Washington church.
In another, seemingly random but ultimately linked act, marchers gathered at Oxford University to demand the removal of a statue of the fervent imperialist Sir Cecil Rhodes, who gave his name to the American scholarships in Rhodes . The program will surely now need a brand change.
Floyd's death also sparks a debate on the complicated racial past of Winston Churchill, who is considered by many to be the greatest Briton in history. Wartime Prime Minister hailed for leadership in fighting Nazism and working with President Franklin Roosevelt to save Western democracy, but his enthusiastic support for the British Empire led protesters to disfigure his statue on London Parliament Square with a slogan calling it racist.
And Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte admitted that he had redesigned his spirit to a local tradition of dressing in black at Christmas.
American enemies like Iran and China have also noticed the uproar. They quickly described Floyd's death as state-sanctioned murder, seeking to undermine Washington's demands for political change in their repressive societies.
Floyd's death moved from politics to culture and sport.
German Bundesliga football players imitated NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick and knelt before the games. NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace will race a Virginia track on Wednesday in a black livery car with the popular "Black Lives Matter" slogan in the Great South. The PGA Tour, not known as a bastion of radical liberals, will reserve the tee time at 8:46 am for a moment of silence when professional golf resumes play Thursday morning - honoring the exact length of time Floyd slept on the ground in Minneapolis under the policeman's knee.
In the boards of directors and newsrooms of American companies, a new calculation of race and discrimination is underway, with many employees considering for the first time the reality of discrimination only too clearly understood by their minority colleagues .
Meanwhile, a squad of former presidents of the Joint Chiefs of Staff broke the cover to reprimand an incumbent president in an unprecedented manner after threatening to deploy troops on active service in the states and portraying inaccurately several days of violence and looting as a reflection of all. protesters.
Barriers to change
Part of the change of the past few weeks is irreversible. It is no exaggeration to say that some minority citizens cannot die because chokeholds have been banned in many jurisdictions.
But Floyd is unlikely to be the last African American man to die in a case resonating with racial overtones. If the arc of history leans toward justice, it is a long and winding process. His death did not change the reality of being black in America - or elsewhere. African American dads will still have to talk to their kids about how to behave with the police. The coronavirus, which has hit blacks disproportionately, makes its own societal comment on disparities in American society.
And while police reform is now on everyone's lips, the half-life of enthusiasm for political change in Washington can quickly ebb. Best intentions are also easily tainted during an election period. The efforts of Trump and his conservative media supporters to tie all Democrats to Liberal colleagues demanding the dismantling and dismantling of the police are proof of this. Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who was accused of doing too little to appeal to people of color when he lost the 2012 presidential election, is one of the few GOP senators to stand up to Trump. . However, his evolution and his conscience are remarkable.
Democrats have their own contradictions to resolve. Presidential candidate Joe Biden, who seeks to fill the leadership vacuum left by Trump, was strongly identified with criminal justice legislation in the 1990s that many activists saw as a contributing factor to institutionalized racism.
A big change can also trigger feedback. And Floyd's death did not change the reality of a president whose reflex is to resort to racial rhetoric to advance his own political ends.
Prove that there is no bottom, Trump pulled another ridicule on Tuesday to say that he could attempt a national healing address by suggesting that a video of a policeman pushing a 75-year-old protester in Buffalo, New York, roughly the ground was a "whole". As a sign of how Republican senators may prove to be an obstacle to change, many would not even allow journalists to read the tweet to them on Tuesday - as if the President's ignorance of the President's glorification of police violence recorded on videotape had released them.
The White House and colleagues have spent the past few days arguing that there is no systemic racism in the criminal justice system - despite ample evidence to the contrary.
But one of the enduring images of the past few weeks may turn out to be the sight of the White House surrounded by a tall black fence, with the President figuratively and literally stepping away from the changing political winds at l 'outside.
