They also go on to betray the whole idea of an America whose race relations is said to have improved. Yet in 2014, in the middle of the postmodern period, little has changed for the ordinary black American, who runs the risk of being killed when suspected of any dubious activity, and the killer can march off scot free. The matter is embarrassing, shameful.
The killing of Michael Brown, the young black man from Ferguson, Missouri in August is still raw. His killer, police officer Darren Wilson, is acquitted by America’s so-called grand jury in what was said to be an apparent lack of evidence. Also, Eric Garner was strangled in July and nothing came out of it. Police violence has escalated over the course of 2014. The land of the free continues to let culprits walk away. Black’s life in America is being made cheap year after year. Interestingly, even the administration in Washington has been made toothless to come up with a system that would protect America;s diverse races. What followed is now the shoddy manner in which it is trying to deal with growing police violence.
It should be noted that in all these instances, the killers find excuses for their dastardly acts, perhaps knowing they would get away with them. Why would a society like that of America erect such a condition for its black people? Why are these acts of killing continuing? How would these acts, which portray America as primitive, be stopped?
But it has to be admitted that America has always had a problem in the relations between the country’s blacks and whites. This goes down deep in history at a time when the political establishment in America put the life of black people under an undesirable light. The story of the black people is characterised by lack of dignity, misery and lack of fundamental freedom and rights. Black people to struggle for their basic human rights to be respected and recognised. Segregation was very much a reality as late as the sixties and seventies. Those who dared to stand up and fight in the likes of Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X where murdered in cold blood and the power that-be never did any constructive investigation to bring the culprits to justice. To many, these acts ultimately exposed the intention of the white supremacist government and that it was not a bad idea that these people were assassinated. The stories are endless and shocking.
The condition of the black people in the United States is abhorrent and many are slum dwellers. As a result, many indulge in criminal acts that further degrade their condition as they try to survive in corporate America. In a land that boasts of being democratic and free and one that promotes equality, also harbours in sweltering millions, unfulfilled promises to and dreams of millions of black people. Racism perhaps makes the situation even uglier where black people are seen to be the drug peddlers and gangsters. And because the majority is rejected by the so-called outer society, which in reality is created by white privilege, on the edifice of black suffering and marginalisation.
Now, to say that every black person walking on the soils of America can be the next Michael Brown or Eric Garner will be invalid. However, all lives clothed in the black skin stand the chance of death by a white bullet and others who are supposed to enforce the law. The increasing police violence on black Americans may continue to establish new narrations. Even those that are undocumented and those brushed past the news will be just as important.
America has indicted itself. It cannot escape from its fate with the high rate of intentional black deaths and white impunity behind it. The likes of Malcolm, Martin Luther, Fred Hampton, Travyon Martin, and Michael Brown are some names that come to mind amidst the thousands that perished unaccounted for. This is why the system in the United States needs to repent and honour and respect black life. It should place premium on this or else it will go down in history as the greatest hypocrite in human civilisation, as in the words of Malcolm X; “they say one thing and practice another thing altogether.” The world continues to watch and see what the United States will do; for most of the work it does to promote human rights seems must be done back home.
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