Hello, my name is Ben Pickering and I am a graduating senior at Oak Park River Forest High School, and will be attending the University of Minnesota in the fall, majoring in African American Studies. By now, most if not all of us have heard of the tragic event occurring Monday, May 25th. George Floyd, an unarmed African American male, was brutally murdered after being pinned down by a knee of a Minnesota police officer.  Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice, Sandra Bland, the list goes on. A 2015 study by Cody T Ross and Peter James Hills found that an unarmed African American was, "3.49 times more likely to be shot by police than were unarmed whites". In 2008, James P McElvain and Augustine J Kposowa found,  "that white police officers were more likely to shoot on the job than either black or Hispanic officers". The Washington Post found it was 2.5 times as likely for an African American person to be killed by a police officer than a white person. Police brutality sadly still remains ingrained into our everyday society, African American men and women are physically harassed, assaulted and killed by white police officers. It's essential that we do not let George Floyd's name become just another statistic.  During spring break of 2019, my family and I drove down through Montgomery, Alabama and visited the Equal Justice Initiative. Founded by Bryan Stevenson, the EJI  is committed to ending mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States, to challenge racial and economic injustice, and to protect basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society. While slavery may have been abolished  centuries ago, our society is still entrenched with institutional racism. Police departments and prisons are just two examples of this. During my trip to Montgomery, I became very interested with the work of the EJI and their work with criminal justice reform. George Floyd was brutally murdered by the criminal justice system, one of the millions who have been failed by our society. I feel I must take action. I have decided to launch this GoFundMe to support the Equal Justice Initiative in honor of George Floyd and many other victims of police brutality. If you can't make a financial contribution, that's okay. Please share this message anywhere you can. There is no room for racism in our society.  Thank you, Ben Pickering <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_nUtdU0wic" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_nUtdU0wic" target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_nUtdU0wic</a></a>

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