This welcome humanising of Floyd might have benefited from a wider focus, including Black women’s experiences of racism and a global perspective

When George Floyd was in high school, his teacher Bertha Dinkins prophetically told the teen: “I want to read about you in the newspaper… that you have made history and done something to change society”. She could never have foretold that Floyd would become a household name because the world watched a video of police officer Derek Chauvin slowly choke him to death with his knee on his neck in 2020.

The killing sparked the largest protests ever against racial injustice, prompting society to discuss racism in ways it has not done for more than a generation. His Name Is George Floyd (written by two Washington Post reporters) attempts to use the life and death of Floyd as a vehicle to examine the bigotry that lies at the heart of the present-day US.