{"id":973,"date":"2021-06-26T01:42:19","date_gmt":"2021-06-26T01:42:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/?post_type=articles&#038;p=189889"},"modified":"2021-06-26T01:42:19","modified_gmt":"2021-06-26T01:42:19","slug":"charmaine-king-george-floyd","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/me\/articles\/charmaine-king-george-floyd\/","title":{"rendered":"Time After Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cWhen you were laying on the sidewalk \u2013 face down, zip-tied \u2013 did you fear for your life?\u201d I ask Charmaine King, a 55-year-old American event producer living and working in the fashion industry in Paris.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes. Absolutely,\u201d she replies assertively, the beautiful wide smile that she had greeted me with just moments earlier now a pursed red lip. \u201cIt\u2019s an ongoing conversation that Black parents have with their children about how to behave, not <em>if <\/em>you are stopped by the police, but <em>when<\/em> you are stopped by the police. Because it is going to happen \u2013 and you need to come home alive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The year was 1985 and King, then just 19 years old, was walking back to work from an LA grocery store when she was approached by white police officers. For no reason other than the colour of her skin, King was forced to lace her hands behind her head and lay down on the ground. While officers checked her identification, one had his foot firmly planted on her neck.<\/p>\n<p>As the George Floyd murder trial plays out in a court right now, King&#8217;s story is an important one to share. On May 25 2020, 46-year-old Floyd \u2013 a Black man from Houston, Texas \u2013 was killed when a Minneapolis police officer stood on his neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds. \u201cI can\u2019t breathe\u201d, Floyd pleaded. \u201cPlease.\u201d He lost consciousness and was later pronounced dead.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is not the first time and it surely won\u2019t be the last time,\u201d says King.<\/p>\n<p>While a strikingly similar incident is recounted by King below, what precedes this moment is a lifetime of casual and overt racism. Ahead, the event producer denotes a timeline in the &#8220;discovery of her Blackness&#8221;, the moment she feared for her life, and her note on the importance of being educated and being kind.<\/p>\n<p>If there is one thing you should read today, make it this.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-189889-4\" width=\"640\" height=\"389\" poster=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Featured-Tile.gif\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Excerpt-2.mp4?_=4\" \/><\/video><\/div>\n<p><strong>GRAZIA: Growing up, how confident were you as a young Black woman? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>CHARMAINE KING: I was confident in my ability to do things. I was not so confident in the fact that people wouldn\u2019t let me get to where I was going. I was always comfortable being Black. I had the absolute fortune of being a first-generation American so I think that that colours a little differently how you view yourself and the level of confidence that you are given through the prism of education that you receive. My parents are both from the West Indies, both from Trinidad, so my experience is a little bit different from being generationally Black American. It was never a thing for me to be Black. It was always the view of someone else that made it uncomfortable.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GRAZIA: When you were 11 years old, an incident happened where a boy in your class likened the colour of your skin to \u201cmud\u201d. Can you tell me about that moment? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>KING: We were in Keene, New Hampshire that summer which is North East of the United States. My mother had met this man and because we were there, she was like, \u2018You should go to camp, what else are you going to do other than hang around here?\u2019 She enrolled me in summer camp, and I was doing all the things that normal kids do \u2013 you hang out, you play, you learn how to make macrame which serves absolutely no purpose but you\u2019re learning something new! I was having a really good time. As we weren\u2019t rich, it was actually the first time I got to go to summer camp. I had a place to be. I got to do normal stuff! One day, a bunch of us were playing and this little boy said to me, \u201cGod must hate you\u201d. I said, \u201cWhy?\u201d and he said, \u201cBecause he made you Black like mud.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>GRAZIA: How did that make you feel?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>KING: \u201cI was super hurt. I couldn\u2019t let him know that he\u2019d hurt me though. Children are cruel but I knew that if I let him know that he had really, really hurt me, that that would be the point that he would press. I finished out the day, I went home and I cried. I couldn\u2019t tell my mother what happened for about two or three days. Of course she was furious when she found out. I said, \u2018Mum, let it go. If you pursue this, it will just make it worse for me. I\u2019ll ignore him. This will be over and I\u2019ll keep it moving.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>GRAZIA: What was your mother\u2019s response to that?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>KING: She was furious but she told me like she had always done, \u201cYou are bright, kind and intelligent and it doesn\u2019t matter what anybody thinks of you.\u201d By the time I was 12, I had literally stopped caring about what anybody thought about me. I had to keep it moving. By that age, I was at boarding school in London. I was the only Black border and one of two Black students. You just have to figure out your life. I believe there is an actual timeline in the discovery of your Blackness in relation to who you are. The first moment is when you\u2019re about four or five and you\u2019ve played with other kids. Around that age you realise you\u2019re not the same colour because someone makes you notice that you\u2019re not. Then, around the age of 11 or 12, someone makes you realise your Blackness is not a good thing. It is an actual negative. The final part of that timeline comes in your teen years. You will have a traumatic experience related to your colour. It could be a beat down or your first stop-and-search by the police.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_189896\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-189896\" style=\"width: 2482px\" class=\"wp-caption alignfull -width\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-189896 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/0001-2020-06-23T214815.746.jpg?resize=2482%2C3510\" alt=\"\" width=\"2482\" height=\"3510\" srcset=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/0001-2020-06-23T214815.746.jpg?resize=2482%2C3510?w=2482 2482w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/0001-2020-06-23T214815.746.jpg?resize=2482%2C3510?w=212 212w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/0001-2020-06-23T214815.746.jpg?resize=2482%2C3510?w=768 768w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/0001-2020-06-23T214815.746.jpg?resize=2482%2C3510?w=724 724w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/0001-2020-06-23T214815.746.jpg?resize=2482%2C3510?w=1086 1086w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/0001-2020-06-23T214815.746.jpg?resize=2482%2C3510?w=1448 1448w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/0001-2020-06-23T214815.746.jpg?resize=2482%2C3510?w=400 400w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/0001-2020-06-23T214815.746.jpg?resize=2482%2C3510?w=152 152w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/0001-2020-06-23T214815.746.jpg?resize=2482%2C3510?w=2000 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-189896\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">King at 19 years old. Credit: Supplied.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>GRAZIA: Tell me what happened that one specific afternoon in 1985 when you set off to get your groceries. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>KING: I had just moved to California and I got this job working for a female director in Brentwood. I realised rather rapidly that it wasn\u2019t going to be a good fit. I told her that morning that I would work out the rest of the day but I wouldn\u2019t be returning the following day. In America, that\u2019s not that big of a deal. She was not a nice woman.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GRAZIA: What happened next?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>KING: She asked me to do the shopping for her so I walked to the grocery store and as I was walking back I hear the \u201cwoop, woop, woop\u201d \u2013 the police siren noises \u2013 and I was surrounded by three squad cars. They had a megaphone telling me to drop the bags and to get on my knees and put my hands behind my head. I was freaking out. I was 19 years old, I weighed nothing. I was a skinny kid. I put the bags down, I got on my knees and laced my hands behind my head because we\u2019ve all had those conversations with our parents when you are pulled over the police. We have these conversations because your parents want you to come home to them alive.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m shaking. I knew I hadn\u2019t done anything wrong. One of the officers \u2013 a white man \u2013 he takes my hands from behind my head and zip ties me, he used riot cuffs. He pushes me down on the ground. I\u2019m flat on the ground and I have my head to one side, obviously. And then he put his foot on my neck. He is literally standing on me.<\/p>\n<p>I asked him, \u201cWhy am I being detained? What did I do?\u201d He said there had been a spate of robberies in the neighbourhood. I said I had literally just got to California, it couldn\u2019t be me. He asked me where my ID was. My Florida driver\u2019s license was in my handbag. I told him it was inside the zip pocket and he can take it out. It took forever. Well, it seemed like forever. I said, \u201cIf you\u2019re going to arrest me, just arrest me. Take me away but don\u2019t do this.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>GRAZIA: Was his foot still there?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>KING: Yes. He never took his foot off my neck. There\u2019s about six or seven officers around me \u2013 one is in my purse, one is in the squad car calling me in. I was just terrified because my mum was picking me up from work at the end of the day, and I knew that if she saw me hand-cuffed on the ground, she would lose it. And if that happened, they would shoot her for making motions and then probably shoot me as well and make up some bullshit. After discovering I had no criminal record, they cut the zip ties and rolled out. They literally left me there. I was shaking. I picked up the bags and walked the rest of the way back. I never even went inside. I put the groceries at my employer\u2019s door and sat on the front step and cried until my mum came to get me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GRAZIA: And nobody helped you up off the ground?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>KING: No. I was one of only a few Black people in Brentwood. It was 1985, there were no Black people in Brentwood. Anybody who witnessed it was probably terrified.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-189889-5\" width=\"640\" height=\"389\" poster=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Screen-Shot-2021-03-31-at-6.53.02-pm.png\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Excerpt-1.mp4?_=5\" \/><\/video><\/div>\n<p><strong>GRAZIA: Let\u2019s go back to that moment on the sidewalk. When you were there \u2013 face down, zip tied \u2013 did you fear for your life?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>KING: Yes. Absolutely. It\u2019s an ongoing conversation that Black parents have with their children about how to behave, not if you are stopped by the police, but when you are stopped by the police. Because it is going to happen. You need to come home alive. You\u2019re taught that if you\u2019re in your car, you must keep both your hands on your steering wheel. You\u2019re taught not to be aggressive and to appear smiley, cheery and non-aggressive. You have to do whatever is necessary because they will find an excuse to take you away.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GRAZIA: Did this incident effect you long term and if so, how?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>KING: It did. You realise that no matter how good you are, no matter how smart you are, no matter how much you blend into society, if you make what someone else considers the wrong move, you are then guilty without reason. It colours the way you do everything. It colours the way you walk down the street. It is absolutely annoying that you get on the subway and every old white lady clutches her purse a little bit tighter. It happens all the time.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 640px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-189889-6\" width=\"640\" height=\"389\" poster=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Screen-Shot-2021-03-31-at-6.20.29-pm.png\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Excerpt-3.mp4?_=6\" \/><\/video><\/div>\n<p><strong>GRAZIA: Did you watch the video of George Floyd\u2019s death in its entirely?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>KING: I did. It made me sick.<\/p>\n<p><strong>GRAZIA: As somebody in this world who has been in a very similar situation, what feelings did that conjure up for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>KING: So many. The first being absolute fear. I feared for George the way that I feared for myself that day as a 19-year-old. It disgusted me because this incident was not the first time and it surely will not be the last time. I was given the sentiment that nothing will ever change in America. It\u2019s not just America \u2013 honestly, these things happen in much less publicised measures everywhere. Why Black people instil fear in the rest of the population\u2026 I mean, I get it. We\u2019ve been conditioned to think that Black is not good. Or that it is a threat. Or we are absolutely different and a little bit less than. People feel that the colour of my skin means that I will eventually resort to savagery.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_189897\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-189897\" style=\"width: 6192px\" class=\"wp-caption alignfull -width\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-189897 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/GettyImages-1232002868.jpg?resize=6192%2C4128\" alt=\"George Floyd\" width=\"6192\" height=\"4128\" srcset=\"https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/GettyImages-1232002868.jpg?resize=6192%2C4128?w=6192 6192w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/GettyImages-1232002868.jpg?resize=6192%2C4128?w=300 300w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/GettyImages-1232002868.jpg?resize=6192%2C4128?w=768 768w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/GettyImages-1232002868.jpg?resize=6192%2C4128?w=1024 1024w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/GettyImages-1232002868.jpg?resize=6192%2C4128?w=1536 1536w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/GettyImages-1232002868.jpg?resize=6192%2C4128?w=2048 2048w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/GettyImages-1232002868.jpg?resize=6192%2C4128?w=400 400w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/GettyImages-1232002868.jpg?resize=6192%2C4128?w=155 155w, https:\/\/graziamagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/GettyImages-1232002868.jpg?resize=6192%2C4128?w=3000 3000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-189897\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Attorney Ben Crump (L), Rev. Al Sharpton (C) and the family of George Floyd kneel for 8:46 seconds during a news conference on March 29, 2021 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Opening statements begin today in the trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who faces second-degree murder charges in the death of George Floyd. (Photo by Brandon Bell\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>GRAZIA: There are so many things that need to change in the system but what would be at the top of your punch list? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>KING: I had a white girlfriend of mine call me up \u2013 educated, lovely, lives in France. She was like, \u201cI think I might be racist.\u201d I was like, \u201cOK, you probably are but so is everyone else.\u201d Everyone fears what they don\u2019t know. I told her, \u201cLet\u2019s start with how I am not the authority on all things Black. I can tell you what I think but I can\u2019t speak for an entire race.\u201d From my point of view, the whole thing is about tolerance and lack of knowledge. I said to her, \u201cHow about educate yourself and be kind? There\u2019s a host of important books that you can read that might make the difference.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>GRAZIA: Do you think the BLM movement will signify any sort of turning point for Black America? <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>KING: There\u2019s two things. This is not the first time people have been up in arms. I think this time is different because everybody is locked up in their houses and doesn\u2019t have anything else to do besides focus on this. So perhaps change will happen. But if we are not organised and have actual real demands to Washington, to the Senate, then this doesn\u2019t mean anything. It\u2019s just noise. If we\u2019re not clear on what it is we\u2019re expecting from all of this, then no one has expectations to meet and nothing will come of it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/2PLfbRt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><span class=\"price-style\">\u201cTIME AFTER TIME\u201d WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN THE NINTH EDITION OF GRAZIA INTERNATIONAL. PURCHASE YOUR COPY HERE.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":7207,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[260,35],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v18.5 (Yoast SEO v20.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Time After Time: Charmaine King Had Her Neck Stepped On By Police<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"George Floyd\u2019s death ignited a racial reckoning that shows no signs of slowing down. 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