8 Mile

The film « 8 Mile » is an autobiography of Eminem’s life and career but it’s above all a portrait of Detroit city and the racial segregation in the United States and more particularly the living conditions of African Americans and the daily tension that takes place between the white and black community. Detroit was the scene of the bloodiest and most destructive riots in the history of the United States on July 23, 1967. After that event, the white community deserted the city. Among cities with 100,000 or more residents, in the early 1980s Detroit became the city with the largest percentage (82% in 2010) of black residents in the United States.

The movie “8 Mile” was released in 2002 but the tension in the American population regarding the African American community still goes on. More recently, we can cite as the most obvious example the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis by the police officer, Derek Chauvin on May, 25 in 2020. This tragic event is just one among many but It caught public and politic attention because the murder was filmed and widely distributed on social networks. In the video we can clearly hear George saying “ I can’t Breathe”.

That sentence has his importance as it become the slogan of the demonstrations and directly inspires the movement “Black Lives Matters”. This movement has largely crossed borders and spread beyond the United States of America. The black lives matter movement has brought to light the issue of discrimination and police violence against the black community. Derek Chauvin get fired from the police’s forces and he was also brought to justice in the Minnesota District Court and the United States Federal Court and was found guilty. Two years later, in response to public anger, the mayor of Minneapolis, Betsy Hodges loosed her reelection bid.

“Black Lives Matters” led to even more significant impacts with some US cities reforming their police. At the federal level, bills on the subject are at a standstill. But in states and cities, we have observed a desire to act, such as in Los Angeles, Seattle and Austin, Texas, where the city council decided to reduce the city’s police budget by a third, a decrease of $150 million. Today, when someone dials 911, they are no longer in direct contact with the police but with a switchboard which decides whether the call requires a uniformed response or the intervention of mental health specialists, for example.

Beyond the United States, here in Belgium, the movement has resurfaced the debate around the kingdom’s colonial past. Indeed, as in the United Kingdom, we witnessed a “statue movement”. Effigies of Leopold II, the former Belgian king who led the colonization of the Congo, have been covered in blood-red paint. He is considered a genius builder by some, a genocidal tyrant by others, responsible for the deaths of several million people. Anti-racist activists demand a“decolonization of public space”. With this idea in mind, the authorities of the city of Brussels organized a major popular consultation to rename the Leopold II tunnel.

The Black Lives Matter movement coincided with another important event in Belgium: the 60th anniversary of Congo’s independence. On this occasion, the current King of the Belgians, Philippe, presented “his deepest regrets” for the “violence, the suffering, the humiliations” committed during the colonial era. A first in the Belgian monarchy… even if the king did not apologize. It is perhaps a parliamentary commission which will take care of this, the Congo commission supposed to look into Belgium’s colonial past, a first there too.