Somehow America can’t seem to get over its racial problems. The shooting of an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, by a white police officer last week in Ferguson, Missouri, is a tragic example of this. This tragedy triggered another riot in Ferguson and clashes with police reminiscent of the civil rights struggle of the 1960s in the South, where police used water hoses and police dogs to control black protesters.
The racial problem in America has a long history dating back to the days of slavery. In 1923, Jamaican-born Pan-Africanist Marcus Mosiah Garvey, during his self-defense in his US court mail fraud trial, made a prediction about the race to court. This is what he said when he asked the rhetorical question about race:
What are you going to do about this issue of race. You can sit quietly but it will be serious later on and that is why the Universal Negro Improvement Association strives to help you solve the Negro problem by helping the Negro to be entrepreneurial, politically independent and having a country. of their own. If you follow me down through the ages, you’ll see that 100 years from now you’re going to have a terrible racial problem in America, when they’ll have increased and the country will be overpopulated. It will be a struggle for existence between two opposing races. The weak will have to fall defeated before the strong. In the riots in Washington, East St. Louis, Chicago, Tulsa, study the race question and you will find that serious thought must now be given to solving this problem; otherwise, our children will face it.
One hundred years from the time Garvey made these comments will come in 2023, only nine years from now, and America still has a serious racial problem. In predicting him, Garvey referenced riots that occurred in four areas of the US Since then, the pattern of riots triggered by racial issues continues to plague American society.
Although the racism perpetrated by social institutions has diminished, the criminal justice system appears to resist changes to improve the unequal treatment of blacks. Blacks receive harsher sentences compared to whites who commit the same crimes and are profiled by law enforcement as suspects and criminals.
In the past two months, the nation has been the subject of four disturbing incidents of police (and one police wannabe) using deadly force or excessive force against Black people. These four incidents sparked the usual frenzy of media coverage and the typical pattern of discussion about racism: denial and accusations. The first incident occurred on February 26, 2012, and involved the murder of seventeen-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida at the hands of aspiring police officer George Zimmerman. Before chasing Martin down and fatally shooting him, Zimmerman made some stereotypical racial comments about the teenager. Police questioned Zimmerman the night of the murder, but he was not arrested until several weeks after the incident began receiving national media coverage. Zimmerman was acquitted based on Florida’s “Stand your ground” law.
The second incident, which was caught on video, showed a white California Highway Patrol officer straddling a woman and punching her in the face. This incident occurred on July 1, 2014 on the shoulder of a busy highway in Los Angeles. The victim was Marlene Pinnock, a fifty-one-year-old unarmed black woman. Her merciless beating was not what you would expect a man to do to a woman. Apparently the patrol officer didn’t care that she was an unarmed woman. The fact that a law enforcement officer gives a woman the kind of beating shown on the videotape raises several troubling questions about the attitude of police officers toward Black people.
The third incident occurred in New York also on July 21, 2014 when Eric Garner, an unarmed black man, was detained by several police officers. During a police confrontation with Garner, a police officer put him in a choke hold and with the help of other officers, he was pushed to the ground. The policemen continued to use unnecessary force to restrain him. Garner, asthmatic, was distraught and moments later was dead.
The fourth incident, the Michael Brown incident, occurred last week in Ferguson, Missouri. The teen was fatally shot as he tried to flee after an altercation with a police officer. Shot in the back, Brown raised both hands to show that he was unarmed. However, the police officer allegedly fired several more shots at Brown’s body, killing him on the spot.
Because these incidents involve black people and occurred in different regions of the country, it is concluded that the treatment of black people by law enforcement is a national problem. It is an issue that requires law enforcement to evaluate their training program and possibly implement training on the use of deadly force and their attitude toward Black people, especially Black youth.
A series of events have occurred in the last five decades that should have given the United States a chance to come to some reconciliation with its racial problem. Dr. Martin Luther King, the fight for civil rights followed by his “I Have a Dream” speech is one such event. Rodney King’s (he was brutally beaten by cops in 1992) famous remarks, “We can’t all get along,” was another moment that gave America a chance to peer into his soul. Then there was the tragedy of 9/11 which was fueled by the hatred of extremist Muslims linked to Al Qaeda. This tragic act of terrorism should have made America look at its own internal hatred and should have helped unite all Americans. The United States cannot afford to condemn the hatred of foreigners while continuing to practice racial hatred.
As with any type of negative social behavior, there is always a catalyst that drives the behavior or makes people feel like they can continue their undesirable behavior. So what is the catalyst behind the rise in the use of brutal and deadly force by police against Black people? I guess it’s the climate of hate that started when President Obama became the first black president.
Some people will disagree that President Obama’s treatment has nothing to do with his race and more to do with his politics. However, that is simply not true, because the way the president has been treated is clearly unprecedented. During the president’s first term and his second term, there has been a relentless effort to destroy his presidency. This effort manifests itself in flagrant disrespect; the conspiracy theories that revolve around it; the sham GOP-run congressional hearings branded as scandals: IRS, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, etc.; propaganda to discredit his policies; talks about impeaching the president; the government shutdown by the Republican Party; President Boehner is suing the president; and personal attacks that sometimes involve racial innuendo. These are all things that no previous president has been subjected to.
If the president of the United States is being treated in the way described in the previous paragraph, it is not difficult to understand why hate is rising again in the United States. In this climate of hate, the cops see it as open season for black people. This climate of hatred is fueled by members of the Republican Party who treat the president as if he were an outcast. It is not surprising then that some world leaders take advantage of this situation. This is exactly what President Putin is doing in his effort to bring Crimea and Ukraine back under Russian control. Putin feels that the United States is divided and that President Obama is not supported on issues of domestic and foreign policy. He knows that with President Obama having a weak hand, he can take advantage of it to do whatever he wants to do.
Marcus Garvey also hit the nail on the head in another prediction he made that is currently playing out in how the GOP treats President Obama. In 1920, Garvey commented that white people would resent black politicians making laws to govern the white man. This is what Garvey had to say:
A terrible mistake was made 40 to 50 years ago when black men were elected to legislative assemblies across the country, especially in the southern states and even in the national capital when representatives of this race held seats in Congress. The mistake was made as far as whites are concerned. There was a state of disorganization in the nation, and in that state certain things happened by sheer chance. With luck, dozens of black men became senators and congressmen. This opened up to the eyes of the white nation the possibility of the black man ruling the white man in this United States of America – the possibility of the black man making laws to rule the white man? This possibility drove them almost insane, as they suddenly rejected the spirit of the Constitution and Lincoln’s declaration that “all men are created equal,” thus determining that it would never again be possible for the race to survive. of the slaves became extinct. rule the race of teachers within these United States of America.
Marcus Garvey not only predicted America’s racial problem, he provided information that America should have heeded. Unfortunately, people like Marcus Garvey are often discredited and his message is not heard. Racial problems are rooted deep in the mind and are the result of what is called the ideology of racism. This is why racism is so persistent and the only way to come to terms with it is through some revolutionary process like a spiritual awakening.
