Scores of cities in the US erupted into mass protests after the death of George Floyd, a 46-year old black man in Minneapolis at the hands of a white policeman after the victim was allegedly caught using a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store. The protests spread to over four hundred cities and towns in all fifty states as well as in around 50 countries, with demonstrators supporting those seeking justice for Floyd and the wider Black Lives Matter movement, and speaking out against police brutality. The protests are taking place during the COVID-19 pandemic, during which gathering in crowds is strongly advised against in some parts of the world, and is illegal in others. That history has once again become the subject of national debate as millions of Americans in recent days gathered in cities large and small to denounce police brutality and racial bias after the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man in Minneapolis, at the hands of a white police officer after allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store. In a video of the encounter, Floyd gasped for breath as police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck while three other officers looked on. Later, Chauvin was fired along with the officers in the video, and all four were eventually arrested for their role in his death. In the US, hundreds of businesses have been damaged, and there has been widespread looting in Los Angeles and Minneapolis over the weekend. As preventive measures, more than two dozen cities had imposed sweeping curfews, including in Minneapolis and St. Paul, the epicentre of the crisis. Governors in 26 states called in the National Guard and Secret Service agents clashed for a second day with demonstrators outside the White House. Race is the fulcrum upon which two radically different visions of America pivot. In the inhuman, banal killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis what was seen is the reactivated weight of the country’s darkest past. In the nationwide demonstration of young blacks and whites against it and other recent racist killings, what was witnessed was the outraged, countervailing force of that other America which Martin Luther King Jr. imagined as the “beloved community.” The death of George Flyod as well as some other black men, women and children across the U.S. during interactions with police officers, have inspired protests and calls for police reform, along with the rise of the Black Lives Matter social justice movement. While many in India have also lent their voices against racism and bias in the US in the light of the death of George Floyd; it would also be fitting if they also seriously ponder over the same mindset of racism, bias and prejudices in Indian society. An observer in India recently wrote “outpouring of Indian support for George Floyd is hypocritical as the same people whose hearts are bleeding now, maintained a stoic silence over communal violence against lower castes, mob lynching, and cases of police brutality in India”. In the recent past, India has seen a spate of violent incidents namely hate crimes, police brutality against students, communal violence, discrimination against minorities because of prejudice. Racism and prejudice are therefore, two sides of the same coin. As Indians protest against racism in the US, they must acknowledge that it also reflects their own society.