Police in the United States are killing people at a rate that would result in 1,100 fatalities by the end of this year, according to a recent investigation by British newspaper, The Guardian, which recorded an average of three people killed per day during the first half of 2015.
Whether it is by default or by design, the victims of these merciless killings are mostly black people. This week, Mansur Ball-Bey, aged 18, became the latest person to be killed by the American police. Ball-Bey is black too.
The justification for the latest killing is that the teenager allegedly pointed a gun at officers of the law. Wednesday’s killing came 10 days after the first anniversary of the death of Michael Brown in north St. Louis, Missouri last year.
Unarmed Brown was fatally shot by a white police officer on August 9, 2014, but a St. Louis County grand jury and the U.S. Justice Department declined to charge the officer.
This year alone, there have been countless incidences of – particularly black people – getting shot to death by law enforcement officers in the USA, which lead eventually to the establishment of the ‘Black Lives Matter’ protest movement in that country.
Indeed, black lives do matter. The U.S. government must acknowledge and address the structural violence and institutional discrimination that continues to imprison black communities, either in a life of poverty and/or behind bars.
These acts have racial undertones and are, in international law, violations of human rights. When it comes to preaching equality and human rights, the U.S. has always remained at the forefront of singing such choruses – a sharp contrast to what is happening in its own backyard.
Even if the argument was correct that black Americans, especially those that have died in this spate of police shootings, were criminals of some sort, it does not require a brain surgeon to realise that crime knows no colour.
As such, it is worrying that black lives have been proportionally the most affected by persistent police brutality. Yet, while those in Washington, like President Barack Obama, may not have control over what is happening on the streets of Ferguson, or St. Louis in the wee hours of the night, State institutions, such as the judiciary of that country have not helped much – evidenced by the apparent refusal by the Justice Department to open a case in Brown’s killing.
America has the money and the capacity to solve this problem. What America does not have, however, is the will to deal with this disturbing scourge. Many black Americans, who killed their white compatriots, under whatever circumstances, have faced the full wrath of the law. Of course there have been whites too, who got punished for killing blacks, but the scale is evidently skewed in favour of white killers.
In the first place, justice should and must never be about skin colour. The law, at least on paper, protects all citizens of that country, regardless whether they are from Compton, Harlem or the leafy suburbs of Malibu.
Addressing this scourge at judicial level is not enough, because this happens after the act of killing. America must look herself in the mirror to see the shame on its face.
The view from Africa is that the U.S is largely hostile to black humans, to the extent of even killing unarmed members of the black community. The tragic massacre of nine innocent people in South Carolina, who were shot and killed while praying in a Charleston church in June gave the world another horrifying glimpse into what appears as an increasing anti-black crusade in America.
If any other country, especially here in Africa, had killed Europeans or white Americans with the frequency and manner witnessed in America this year, there would even be talks of charging leaders of that country with crimes against humanity for failing to arrest the situation. But in America, the trend continues unabated. It is time Africa’s leaders speak out.