Two women of Guyanese heritage were at the forefront at a protest in New York City to fight against racial profiling following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis.
At the protest held near Times Square in Manhattan and organised by the co-founders of Black Lives Matter Greater New York (BLMNY), attorney-at-law, Aminta Kilawan-Narine and Dr. Kamini Doobay, sounded their voices in solidarity with the Black community.
The BLMNY offered a Blueprint for change, calling on New York state legislators and members of Congress to end the slaughter of Black people by police officers that are supposed to protect them.
Kilawan-Narine, told the gathering of over 15,000: “Many in our brown communities think this is a black and white issue. That this isn’t our fight. POCs (persons of colour) can be racist too. So I am speaking directly to my community – my Indo-Caribbean community, my South Asian community and my Hindu community – when I say this is our issue as much as it is everyone else’s…. We need to take ownership of both the good and the bad this country has brought to its inhabitants, not bury our heads in the sand when it suits us. And when our black brothers and sisters are brutalized, we need to rise up for them.”
She echoed the sentiments that Black Lives Matter (BLM), on behalf of Sadhana and South Queens Women’s March.
She said too that it is important to unequivocally condemn police brutality and all violence rooted in racism and add their voices to everyone in the streets, demanding justice.
She was “angry and exasperated by the systemic injustice, the state-sponsored violence that plagues our country, the racism against black people that festers just like the pandemic.”
She called on fellow attorneys to fight for black rights pro bono and on her doctor friends to fight for equitable healthcare for black and brown people.
Dr. Doobay in her remarks said doctors and the health system have failed black people.
She stood with BLM and noted that while the communities have been plagued with the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), she and other doctors took an oath to serve (but) racism has plagued itself as the deadliest public health emergency.
“I can’t breathe; these are the most horrifying words. As an emergency medicine physician, I spring into action (with) intubation and resuscitation, any life-saving measure to save that life-saving breath,” she pointed out.
She lamented that a police officer tasked with the safety of others, knelt on Floyd’s neck, robbing him of his life.
“When hospitals turn patients away because they are uninsured or under insured, they are saying that these patients’ lives are less valuable,” Dr. Doobay pointed out.
She said too that it is considered looting when the hospital system takes Medicaid dollars for “treating the poor but lie and turn them away.”
The NYC hospital where Dr. Doobay works, also held a protest a few days prior, to show support for BLM.
Health care workers went on one knee before observing almost nine minutes of silence – the time the police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck, killing him.
Dr. Doobay who also spoke at that event, said, “We hope not just to save black lives, but to save humanity by valuing black lives. Black people can no longer be denied basic human rights.”
