Does the state present a bigger threat than ISIS if you’re black in America?

Greetings,

Does the state present a bigger threat than ISIS if you’re black in America?

New data compiled by The Guardian newspaper has highlighted the shocking levels of police violence inflicted upon the US’s black communities.

The study, which looked at the number of deaths caused by the police in the US during 2015, highlights a sobering reality which is all too often overlooked.

According to the figures, despite making up a small percentage of the population, roughly 2 percent, black people are nine times more likely to die following contact with the police.

The figures also suggest that this remains the case irrespective of whether or not the victims are armed, or are suffering from a mental health condition.

This is a pattern we see replicated the world over, including in the UK, institutionalised racism continuing unchallenged because of apologists within politics and the media, and a justice system which time and time again favors the state.

While the problem of state violence is increasingly being viewed in a global context, the analysis conducted by The Guardian on the effect it has on African-Americans is nonetheless revealing.

The study suggests that the disproportionate way in which black communities are impacted by police translates and breaks down like this: 1 in every 65 deaths of young African Americans males is caused by the police.

When we think about that, and also the fact that black people are less likely to be armed than others, and certainly no more likely to commit crime, we begin to understand the full nature of the problem and why people feel very strongly about it.

The Black Panther party, which emerged as a direct response to the experience of black people in the US, stated that black people were simply being colonised by the same government that had enslaved them in the first place. Who would argue with them?
Given the way the United States has treated black people historically, enslaving Africans and forcing them to build the so-called free world without a day’s pay, it isn’t hard to see why anger and frustration exists.

When we think about the fact that despite building the country, black people did not secure the right to vote until the 1960s, we realise that the shameful history of genocide and enslavement has led to very real repercussions today, economically, socially and politically.

Looking at the barbarous actions of the police state in areas such as Ferguson, where black men are literally being murdered on the street in broad daylight, we can further conclude that history is not a cycle – it’s more like a continuous line.

Liberals and cynics claim progress has been made, and point to the advent of a black president as proof. When that same president uses the same language of the far right in the US however, and refers to protesters in Baltimore as “thugs” like something from the Bill O’Reilly/ Fox news playbook, we can see two things: the limits of the presidency, and also the fig leaf of legitimacy the president provides in deluding people into falsely believing we are in a “post-racial” political utopia.

The problem of police violence is a longstanding one, but in recent years as more and more incidents are captured on film, the problem of lethal force used by police has been brought sharply into the spotlight.

The Guardian’s new study was published days after the news broke that the police officer who killed Tamir Rice, a 12-year-old child, was cleared by a jury and walked free.

In 2015, more than 1,000 people were killed by the police in the United States.

There is now no doubt that the phenomenon of domestic state violence overwhelmingly affects minorities, especially black people but of course ultimately all of the poor and marginalised communities. Racism is little more than an ugly export of the ruling class and capitalism, ultimately inflicted upon working people of all colours living in the worst conditions. The racism which built America simply targeted the most powerless and to a greater extent. The most powerless people in the US are black and brown people exported from the occupied colonies, with slavery being one of the greatest crimes in human history. Slaves were intentionally cut off from their language and history to ensure ensuring their powerlessness and psychological controllability……More Here

Social

Does the state present a bigger threat than ISIS if you’re black in America?