backlash: the murder of george floyd documentary
Backlash: The Murder of George Floyd
by Alex Shukri
In 2020, there was the roar of a civil uprising building each day after May 25th: the day of the murder of George Floyd. With every minute that passed, more people around the world joined together in the streets. Those who had been shouting for years about the terror that the police and the police state cause to Black people were being heard on a worldwide scale. Changes were being made with policies, companies put out statements, and officials across all industries were being held to account.
Because if there was no justice, there would be no peace.
And now, five years later, what has changed? Leaders in the U.S. and the U.K. are unleashing policies that destroy DEI initiatives, strip back rights, and try to pin all the terrible things wrong with these former empires on marginalised communities.
So director Kwabena Oppong, producer Satema Tarawally, and a whole team came together to reflect on these last five years in Backlash to recount George Floyd’s murder, the massive global reaction to it, and now the backlash that followed
“We’re in a time where it’s quite difficult sometimes to make films about social issues or around race. It was really key to me to have the right people to tell this story,” Kwabena said.
“One thing we realised while we were filming and doing these interviews is that while we really all galvanised and came together then. There is still work to be done, and we do need to do that again. The fight isn’t over. We might be tired, we might need that Redbull or Americano to hit the streets again, but that movement of ‘everyone’s an activist’ feeling from 2020 needs to come back. Let’s get back out there. We’re in interesting times, and it would be great to get that feeling back. Everyone needs to be a part of change, and everyone needs to push back together,” Satema said.
“Exactly, this film has so many stories within it. Like Che Lingo, like Julian Cole, the messages of ‘pushing back because it’s not over’ are there. You can, we can, resist,” Kwabena said.
Throughout the film, different activists, political figures, and entertainers like former advisor Samuel Kasumu, rapper Che Lingo, and activist Imarn Ayton contribute key details to a revolutionary time. The mixture of American figures and British ones emphasised the truth in 2020: while the struggle against police brutality unites Brits and Americans, Brits were protesting in solidarity with Black Americans and against British police brutality.
Whispers of “why don’t we protest like the French?” and “what happened in 2020? I miss that” have been echoed around since 2021, and this film doesn’t give the answers of how to achieve a perfect protest that will solve all the problems. No film could.
This film doesn’t give the answers for how to bring back the energy that 2020 harvested. But necessarily, it demonstrated that there are still countless people who want to fight and who are still fighting for change around policing, the judicial system, and the ‘system’ overall. That progress does not have to be lost. And of course, it emphasised that understanding what happened in 2020, 2015, 2012, and before still matters today. Each life that was lost, each protest that happened, matters. The uprisings that happened in 2020 did not come out of nowhere, and the energy that was buzzing all around has to happen yet again. Permission does not have to be granted to fight against the racist norm.
“We wanted to make this film to look at some of the most uncomfortable parts of race relations in the UK and the US. Each contributor shares their incredible insight and their stories: we managed to get people who were at the epicentre of these stories. I think that’s what makes this film special. People who were on the ground in Minneapolis, like Nekima, or people who were on the ground in the UK,” Kwabena said.
Of equal importance to the contributors’ stories are the cold facts of over-policing and brutality done by the police to Black and Asian communities. Like how during the first national Covid-19 lockdown, the equivalent of 1 in 4 Black men between the ages of 15 and 24 were stopped and searched in three months, even though they were not committing a crime.
Or the 2021 report that claimed the UK doesn’t have institutional racism. The heart of the British Empire, a stronghold of slavery, could not have institutional racism because a few people said it was not so. Facts like these are specifically spotlighted because while the human side of these stories is so important, understanding the systemic issues that are still happening gives necessary context to why people did, and do, protest.
“I’ve been working on programs to do with Black history in this country, and it’s very different to do something that’s happening right now. It’s so raw, recent, we can all remember it. This shows the reality of what we’re living in right now,” Satema said. “When we were listening to people’s experiences in the interviews, it was so raw and difficult. I don’t think either of us expected it to feel so emotional hearing those stories. Because you can know, but then you sit and hear these stories and you feel this sense of responsibility to tell their stories.”
“We were still filming and editing when we got news of Julian Cole dying. That’s what the film is about, it looks at the relationship between Black people and the police. We’re trying to say something about the state of the world and how more people should be talking about it. How many more people should be talking about how he just died and he sustained serious injuries from the police without any justice for it,” Kwabena said.
For activists, newcomers, and educators alike, this documentary has something for everyone to take away. The leaning on community that happened then is still happening now all around the world: we just have to open our eyes and take part how we can. Spreading information about protests, donating money, and taking direct action are all things that people did in 2020 and are still doing now. As the film demonstrated, it took one person saying, ‘Should we protest in our small town?’ ‘Should we tear down this statue of a racist historical figure?’ to make lasting change.
“Everyone who watches it should feel that they can make an impact. That they can continue the conversation. That we can continue to have hope.”
Alex Shukri
★★★★☆