What if Steve Nash was Black?

“What if George Floyd was white?”

This simple thought experiment was posed on Quora recently, drawing a mixed bag of responses.

Gabriel Bell, a pro-choice software developer from the UK said that “I doubt anyone would have heard of him…but it would not have got past second — just a white guy being taken away in a police car as countless others went about their lives.”

Alec Johnson, a member of the conservative Liberal Party of Australia, had a different view. “George Floyd would be dead if he was white, and there most likely would be no public backlash behind it.”

Other more prominent personalities, such as physician and managing director of Thiel Capital, Eric Weinstein, has frequently pointed to the murder of whites by police, such as that of Daniel Shaver, to highlight the disparity in public outcry. “Daniel Shaver was white and died on camera in an Arizona hotel room. Be honest, had he been Black you would know that racism was behind the deed, and yet because he was white we know that it played no role”.

‍THE WORLD IS NUANCED

It is inconceivable to deny the systemic challenges that face people of color today, particularly in the United States, but what arguments like Weinstein’s is attempting to do is highlight a growing and worrisome trend to fit…