Nor it is racist, as a white guy ended up dead under almost the same circumstances in Dallas a few years ago, not even being a criminal, but schizophrenic off his medication (I posted a WaPo link about it a few pages back).
Strictly speaking, just because a white guy died in similar circumstances somewhere else does not disprove racism in this case. But I understand what you're getting at, the charge of racism is not necessarily proved either. We don't know what was going through the mind of the police officer who did the killing, but that kind of disregard for other people's lives is not what a civilized society should expect from a police force, imo.
If your society really believes that there is war in the streets of your cities, you had better find more creative ways to deal with it because it's hair-brained to think that tougher cops with tanks will fix that.
Taking a step back though, it might show some problems with how police respond to situations. In the Floyd case, I believe it that the guy could still be a hazard while handcuffed. But sitting on his neck (for 9 min, I read elsewhere) is no accident, legal semantics aside. May not be murder, sounds more like negligent homicide to me, but I'm not a lawyer and don't really understand the nuances. But it stinks big time. And I don't see what difference it makes how many other crimes Floyd was guilty of. Those other crimes may be reasons for incarcerating him longer but it doesn't give a street cop license to meet out justice. By that point he was restrained, the level of danger was lessened, time to switch to a different mode.
There's something going wrong here. It may not always be precisely racism in each case, but the US needs to figure out what it is. If you behave as if your cities are a war zone, you'll get a war. Civil authority is only respected when people think it's legitimate. The Ken Burns 3-part documentary about Prohibition says more about that than it does about alcohol. Worth watching if you haven't seen it.
