Modern instances of racism are rather subtle and usually harder to completely analyze from what the victim recounts later. It ranges from a tinge of scorn from the clerk at the usual supermarket to the stench of serious human rights violation by the police. The concept that these acts of racism are isolated and does not signify any underlying pattern was vehemently upheld by many men and women of authority until recently. But as of today, they stand corrected. Even from a passive standpoint, after hearing from a number of such victims, we have come to accept that this myth is rather forced upon than based on real facts. Because, after serious extrapolation, it has become apparent that the high number of victims (of racism) from UCLA indicates a serious issue that is growing in the shadows of United States. This issue requires serious and immediate attention before it spirals out of control.
Some of these cases, as remarked before, are clearly impossible to prove in a court of law. For instance, the case of an African American staff member who was denied service at a department store and called a “black bitch” by the female clerk when enquired, can be easily twisted out of its obvious segregated context in a court. Incidents of denying service and stereotyping according to race has become frequent here in our locality. But out of the many such detrimental racial issues, the case of an African American graduate student, who was stopped and arrested by the police, all the while denying him the basic rights of a prisoner, just for a mistaken case of identity (remarked as “suspiciously looking like a suspect” by a policeman) rather than with any credible reason, deserves a special place of its own.
The significance of this scene is that it reminds of a bygone era when the United States was rocked by the greatest communal riot it has witnessed until now. If Rodney King (March 3, 1991) was denied his human rights after having committed a serious crime, the graduate student from UCLA who was arrested, was denied his rights simply out of “suspicion”. The people of authority who claim that such incidents of past have completely disappeared from our country and has since become isolated events (if they still exist) need to be reminded of yet another uprising that the nation may witness in a few more years. But this time, for obvious reasons, the perpetrators of such acts have become aware of his/her position and decided to stay behind and refrain from displaying such obvious acts of racism (as the lynching of Rodney King). They are, as mentioned before, subtly covering up their true incentive (racial segregation) using displeasure or suspicion for doing such activities.
This incident reveals a nature of the average American citizen. It is clearly evident that these incidents are not enough to incite a nation wide movement against police brutality towards people of a specific race. We need a couple of gun shots, a video of a lynching, or a man getting killed in public to get ourselves off the couch to make some amendments. The outrage that we had after watching the video of Eric Garner (July 17, 2014) getting choked to death for committing the serious offense (as indicated by the police) of breaking off a fight has since become dormant in our minds (RACISM AND THE LAW (2016 UPDATE)). We are waiting for yet another Rodney King or Eric Garner to pick up our outrage towards such acts of barbarianism. How else can we still explain the survival of such acts even after incidents involving victims like Abner Louima (August 9, 1997) forced policy makers to make many amendments regarding police brutality? How else can we explain why police forces are still capable of making obvious hints of racial bias every chance they get?
Abner Louima was taken to the police precinct station and brutally tortured in the bathroom. His injuries were rather severe that he had to spend more than two months in a hospital and needed surgical intervention (Von Blum). There is still no way of justifying the acts of the men who committed this heinous crime on Abner Louima. But now it is time to introspect as to what change Abner Louima was able to bring into the midst of modern day police brutality and race bias. At most, he was able to subtract some elements such as a bathroom floor, a broomstick, ruptured bladder and colon, from the future incidents. But the motivation to commit such acts and hatred brought by racial bias still persists in most parts of our police forces. The most recent example being the case of the graduate student from UCLA.
But the real question we need to ask is here is that why can’t we bring an end to this savage thinking. The essays of eminent African American scholars such as James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Langston Hughes, etc still haunts us with their recounts of the kind of racial segregation and contempt that they had to suffer during the early years of American formation. The essay, Stranger in the Village, by James Baldwin is a serious study into the reasons why racial tension in American cannot simply end. He (James Baldwin) attributed this American uniqueness to the reluctance of the prejudiced white communities to acknowledge the atrocities that their forefathers once committed. He also predicted that this tension would never end. As indicated by these modern incidents, it appears as though he was right. Even though the atrocities committed by the forefathers of American whites has since been well documented and popularized by many books and movies, they are still not capable of making a serious change in our daily life. These prejudiced Americans are still so inclined in denying the right to live for a few minorities in our country. The concept of referring to American citizens as African, Latin, or Indian, signifies the bias that we still foster in our prejudiced minds. Even so when the American whites are known to the fact that the other races have as much claim on the American soil as they (Caucasians) have as none of us have had our forefathers live here for more than a few centuries (Baldwin).
We have yet again reached a point where we need to analyze the whole scenario of racial segregation, bias, and acts of violence towards people of other races that occurs every day in America. Our past has indicated that only obvious cases of police brutality (towards the African American community) receives wide scale attention. The case of Tamir Rice (November 12, 2014) is the best example of this statement. The twelve year old kid was shot dead by a group of police officers that rushed to the rescue of the American citizens in a park just as soon as dispatch reported that a kid was terrifying the Cleveland people with an airsoft gun. This incident did not receive the significance it deserved simply because the Americans considered it as an act of necessity. The police officer, who shot Tamir, did so from the car before it halted next to him, which proves that he did not have the time for any prejudiced thinking. But this was not essentially the case. According to the police reports, it was later revealed that the officer who shot Tamir had repeatedly asked the dispatcher for the race of the kid who was terrorizing the people in the park. Reminding yet again that the officer shot Tamir only after learning that he was an African American. Their (officers) actions did not stop there either. They handcuffed Tamir’s sister and took her in while refusing to administer first aid to Tamir which could still have saved him. Tamir died without causing any significant difference to the African American community, except for the $6 million fine that the city of cleveland agreed to pay his family.
These incidents are a clear reminder that the age of Rodney King has ended for the prejudiced American police. Now, they are promoting an unrest in the African American community towards a more insidious agenda. Even when the African American community has enough members in our country’s prestigious positions, including the presidency, the agenda of these policemen in fostering a prejudiced and stereotyped outlook about these minorities is completely elusive. How can we explain the notion that a situation is a matter of national security only if a black man or a woman is involved? Quite contrary to what we teach our children, and what we believe ourself, our police forces are hell bent to prove that the white Americans should fear their African American neighbors. We can’t ask our American friends to give away such diminutive thinking, especially when the people we selected to protect and serve us are forcing us to believe in the contrary.
The truth is not very far from what we could have guessed. The racial tension still exist in America but only as a result of ignorance. The prejudiced American society is yet to understand that their African American kin has grown out of their misery many many years ago and have started to fill in the voids left by our many eminent scholars. Even the highly acclaimed American law is a clear indicator of this ignorance. Early American laws were devised in a manner to protect the racial discrimination of the American minorities (African Americans) to protect the interest of its white men of authority. The contrast between racial accommodation and racial segregation is still evident in the history of American law. For instance, America had only realized the hypocrisy in its fourteenth amendment (and its practices thereof) in the light of the amendment when the Supreme Court ruled that separate public schools for white was unconstitutional (Brown vs Board of Education 1954) (Von Blum). Even though many years had past since slavery was abolished in our country, we are yet to reach the conclusion that people of all races have equal rights on everything.
In the light of these facts, the question arises whether the student of UCLA, who got arrested, would have received a different treatment had he been a caucasian. It forces one to wonder how a policemen treats a “white man” who gets arrested for a mistaken case of identity. Also, we need to ask now whether there had been other cases where random African American men or women were remanded in suspicion of being another even at a time where one could easily prove one’s identity without having to look too far but into his/her wallet. There is no other choice but to believe that the policemen who arrested our student did so in the belief that he had to be the culprit as he was African American. The same way Eric Garner and Tamir Rice were killed by the police. Civil Rights act of 1964 has completely ended the obvious discrimination that existed in the distribution of American facilities (Von Blum). But it was not enough to end the subtle hints of racial segregation that persisted for many more years to come and still persist today. It is about time we question our own notions. Are we still not mature enough that we require another law to end such detrimental thinking that we still foster in ourselves?
These incidents, as recalled in this memorandum, is enough to prove that the time span that James Baldwin had predicted America might need to cure from this detrimental racial bias has already past. It is time we made amendments to our law to accommodate people of all races without bias. We have to take away some of the civil rights that provides these prejudiced white people an opportunity to deny services, deny apartments, arrest without credible cause, or accuse people of wrongdoings based on their race. This has to start from somewhere. A point of incidence where the victim did not have to die or get lynched in public or get videotaped of being choked by police is important for this change. This will prove that the minorities of our nation are not simpletons that will wait for a death or a gunshot to react. And this only can prove that America is not the hateful world, that was owned by despicable whites dominating the deprived blacks, it was once. We have to prove that we too are capable of living in the modern civilized world in harmony, with all races living living together and prospering without hindering each other’s progress in the process.
Works Cited
Baldwin, James. Notes of a Native Son. Beacon Press, 2012. Print.
RACISM AND THE LAW (2016 UPDATE). N.p., 2016. Film.
Von Blum, Paul. Racial Segregation and the Law. Ed. Jessica Knott. California: Bassim Hamadeh, 2012. Print.
