The Dalai Lama, Tibet’s exiled leader, said racism was at the core of George Floyd’s death while in police custody.
He commented on the death, which has sparked violent riots in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during a webcast from his home in India.
“We see in the news channels, the media, about discrimination on the basis of color or religion these days, and then there is killing due to that, and then there are some who even take it as a pride to be able to kill somebody,” the Dalai Lama said, according to CNN. “Just yesterday, I saw on the television news, somewhere in Minnesota, or somewhere in America, one black person had actually fallen under a car, and the police team … and he actually pushed his knee on the neck of that black person.”
“So, because of this discrimination, racism on the basis of race, such things are done,” he added.
Protests in the city of Minneapolis began Tuesday after footage showed a police officer kneeling on the neck of Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, for approximately eight minutes until he became unresponsive. Floyd was pronounced dead at a hospital.
U.S. political leaders have called for arrests in the case, particularity for Derek Chauvin, the man filmed with his knee on Floyd’s neck. The FBI is investigating the death with support from President Trump, who drew controversy in the early hours of Friday morning after he tweeted, “When the shooting starts, the looting starts.” Trump’s tweet was given a warning label by the social media company for breaking Twitter’s policies about “glorifying violence.”
