Clara Debnam, an African-American artiste in Washington D.C., has released a powerful song in memory of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was choked to death by a white cop in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25.
Floyd, 46, was killed by Derek Chauvin while he pleaded with the policeman to let him breathe as he knelt on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds. Chauvin and three other cops who watched the daylight execution of Floyd without intervening have all been sacked and charged with murder.
The killing, captured on camera, was greeted with outrage, and has triggered nationwide protests across the United States and the world, including in Washington D.C. where anger exploded on Monday after riot police supported by both the National Guard troops and other federal agencies rousted peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square so President Donald Trump could walk to St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo op.
“George Floyd represents an instrument of love, being treated like an instrument of hate,” Ms. Debnam told TODAY NEWS AFRICA‘s Simon Ateba in an interview.
“George Floyd represents all the black faces who were not extended grace, simply for their skin being permanently kissed by the sun.”
Debnam said her song titled “God are you listening?” may sound like a song of lament to God, however it is “an outcry to the church, the “people of God” to do their part in ending systematic oppression and the narrative that this country was built upon -that being White is right and being black is wrong.”
Born in Raleigh, North Carolina, Clara “Shadow” Debnam is a DC based Visual Artist, Singer and Speaker.
Friends and acquaintances describe her as someone with a big heart for the overlooked and forgotten in the society.
The daughter of a baptist minister and a ‘God fearing’ mother, Debnam said in releasing the song, she hopes that “those whose spirit is telling them to speak up, to take action and or to do more, would not be afraid, and would be courageous enough to let fear take the passenger seat so that the world may be better, stronger and just sooner rather than later”.
Simon Ateba is Chief White House Correspondent for Today News Africa. Simon covers President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, the U.S. government, the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other financial and international institutions in Washington D.C. and New York City.