In Defense of Race Relations in America: The killing of Michael Brown and Eric Garner Part 6

America, God’s own country, the land of opportunity, where those with mind and hope can make it; where is the exceptionality? American exceptionalism, where is it?  America should not mess up its reputation as the leader of the free world.  We are in the 21^st century world; not in the dark days of the 18 and 19 centuries; periods when a Black man used to be lynched before a crowd of other citizens, who would sing, dance and clap their hands.  The world cannot be a free place if Africans and African Americans, a very sizable member of the human race is in bondage in the land of the free.  Especially that there should be no more a justifiable reason to discriminate or kill Africans unjustifiably in the land of the free, a land they previously occupied before any other settler. Blacks in the Americas are not only by the incident of Slave Trade.

Before the era of Slave trade there were evidence that Africans were here before the Indians and Columbus.  We read: “In Ohio there are ten thousand of these earthen structures, and in Newark, Ohio, there is a huge mound covering a two-mile square. On some of these mounds trees of great age are growing.”  “Within these mounds statuettes representing black people have been found.  They have every feature of the native African.  This indicates to me that these mounds were built by Africans who must have preceded the Indians, inasmuch as the Indians knew nothing about them and do not appear to have had the disposition to build such monuments themselves.” Some other evidence was also found in Tennessee and other areas in the Americas. (See Dark Race in the Dawn, Proof of Black African Civilization in the Americas Before Columbus by K. M. Johnson 1948, published by The William - Frederick Press, New York, 1948; read Professor Leo Wiener’s “Africa and the Discovery of America,” 1919-1923, and read Africa's Gift to America, by J. A. Rogers, 1961.  Can these killings of Black males in America be stopped; is it not possible for all of us to live together in the spirit of brotherhood; the brotherhood of man and woman in America?

Police brutality in America is a symptom and a part of a larger malaise that needs to be dealt with head-on.  Police brutality is part of a systemic problem designed to see a Black person in America as an animal or an ugly game to be abhorred and killed.  A systemic problem designed to deny employment to a Black person, especially a Black man in America; a structured system designed to liquidate and frustrate the emotion and morale of most Black people in America. Call a Spade a Spade, tell the truth and let the devil be ashamed.  Let all of us in unison shame racism; Racism: shame on you.  Racism you are the harbinger of police brutality directed against Black people in America and you are the reason behind inequality of African peoples and the bane of their progress in America. The inhumane systematic and undeserved killings of Black young men by Police in America is an effect of racism; one cannot see racism, but its impact can be seen and felt hence the dinning about police brutality.  Let us therefore, unite against racism anywhere and America should champion the crusade against racism as the leader of the free world. 

Yesterday, Thursday, December 4, 2014, the Speaker of the House, Mr. John Boehner, a Republican from Ohio, said that he still has “unanswered questions.” The Speaker is a politician.  A politician says one thing and means another. Even then, John Boehner knew why he said that he still has unanswered questions because he is not blameless on the issue of racism in America in our time. Mr. John Boehner speaks for the corporations of America; the one percent of America that dictates what is done in western democratic America.  Mr. Boehner was responding to a question from Ed O’Keefe, a congressional reporter about the recent deaths of Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner of New York.  Both deaths resulted from a Police Officer’s gun shots and Police Officers’ stranglehold or chokehold.  Michael Brown was an 18 year old young man, had no knife or gun on him, unarmed, with his hands up in the air, yet, a policeman, Darren Wilson shot at him more than ten times; the young man died on the spot and his corps was left on the street for four hours. He was in the company of a friend who witnessed the killing, and he testified with other people who saw the outright murder.  A grand jury directed and controlled by a Prosecutor, the system in Ferguson decided and acquitted Darren Wilson of any blame. Such killing of an unarmed young boy who was not previously charged for any criminal offence by any court of law was not an indictable crime or offence in America.

Eric Garner was also unarmed.  Eye witness accounts explained that Mr. Garner, a father of six children, wife and grandchildren had just separated a fight between two young boys, and while walking away he was accosted by five police men.  A bystander who videoed what has now become an historical event in US history shows Garner with his hands stretched forward with his palms opened while telling the police to leave him alone; that there was no reason for them to be trailing him; that he was minding his own business.  While four of the police were in front of him touting or pestering Eric with a view to holding him, the fifth police man, Daniel Pantaleo, an Italian American may be, passed behind Eric Garner and put a strangle hold or chokehold on him from the front of his throat.  Such holds normally suffocate and kill.  The other four policemen rushed in on Garner and forced him to the ground.  They all pressed him to the ground on the sidewalk while one put handcuffs on him while the rest stayed on him; one of the police was pressing Garner’s head to the ground while Pantaleo with his strangle hold still on Garner on till Garner was now crying “I can’t breathe I can’t breathe,” about eleven times.  His voice was heard by those who were watching, and the cry I can’t breathe is heard very well in the video.  So, it is inconceivable for the five police men to not have heard the cry of “I can’t breathe” I can’t breathe from Garner under them.  The man died right there in the hands of the five police men before an ambulance came.  None of the five police men attempted to perform CPR on Garner, an attempt that may or may not have resuscitated the dying man.  There is no doubt that police in America know how to give CPR, therefore it is a fallacy for Pantaleo to claim that he did not intend to kill Eric Garner.  In my opinion, the police men did not want Garner to live because he was a Black man.  Otherwise, on the day Garner was murdered by the police, he was not accused of any crime and was not selling anything for which he was previously arrested.  No one has up to this time told the world the crime for which he was a suspect upon which he was trailed and subsequently accosted and killed.

The police men knew Eric very well because according to reports they have arrested him several times before for selling loose untaxed cigarette.  The man was 350 lbs in weight; he has a family of six children plus his wife to feed; but according to reports, Garner was unemployed, which is not news in Black and other minority communities in America.  So Garner has to sell untaxed cigarette in New York to feed his family.  We know that everyone pays tax in America, and in New York especially, one pays tax to use public toilet or else, the door will not open. It used to be like that when I was there briefly; I do now know if it is still like that. The irony of it all is that Garner was not selling cigarette when he was stopped by the police who finally choked him to death on that day.  It could have been the reason he was asking the policemen to leave him alone to mind his business as played it out by the video.   In my own opinion, Garner was selling untaxed cigarette as a way to protest against tax without representation which is similar to the reason America went to war with the British; “ No tax without representation.”  An opponent of this thought may query, that Eric Garner has representations at the House in America where the law to pay tax on cigarette was made.  It is probably an article of faith to Mr. Eric Garner that he was not being represented, because those elected representatives who are sympathetic to Blacks and other minorities’ ordeals in America were not allowed to legislate in his favor.  Is it possible for any true American observer to dispute this conception considering the fact that Corporations have become humans who can speak with money in elections in America; the one percent who should not pay tax as they earn money and property?  It is incontestable that there is unequal tax assessment in America, an issue for which President Barack Obama is being crucified by those who speak for the one percent of the population, and are opposed especially to Black man’s presence in America.            

Yes, there is police brutality in America. Yes, “Cops watched over my White Brothers and Arrested my Black Brother”;  and yes, “White boys get driven home by the police and paternally watched over as they break into a house while Black boys get shot in the street as they make their way home” (Emma McGowan).  It is a fact that a 12 year old Black boy, Tamir Rice was shot dead at a public park because he had a toy gun in his hand.  It is also true that Black men get pull over by the police for driving only in a rich White neighbor hood.  It is a truism that police in America do not shoot to disarm an offender if some ever had a weapon while being pursued by the police.  The police only know how to shoot to kill Black people, and not to disarm them with a view to bringing them to trials.  It is police summarily executions all the time.  The Blacks are the last to be hired and the first to be fired.  Millions are unemployed for no reason of theirs other than they are Black. An unemployed person segregated by the system is like one whose back is forced to the wall; he or she has no alternative but to fight back if he or she must survive. Survival then may just have to be through doing things that may be illegal, such as shoplifting and other minor infractions for which most Blacks are severely punished if caught.  We thought the days of slavery are over. It is arguable that the amount of money the court collects from the huge volume of prejudicial traffic violation tickets issued to more Blacks than any other human race in Black communities is the funds used to run the court system in America.  These unequal treatments meted out on defenseless Blacks and other minorities are a true testimony of the impacts of racism that is needed to be addressed in America.  Police brutality is just a weapon of racism.

Well meaning citizens of the United States lead by the President of the United States, Professor Barack Obama, Attorney General, Mr. Eric Holder, the Department of Justice, and the New York City Mayor, Mr. Bill de Blasio are hoping that Police Reforms and Police Training Program would do the trick.  Some congressional leaders, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi Democrat from California and Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Washington and a fourth-ranking House Republican are calling for a House hearing on the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner.  In my candid opinion, it is contestable that House Hearing may not go far enough to produce policies aimed at decoding the slave master mentality currently still operating in the minds of the Police in America.  Ironically, no amount of training and reorientations within three weeks or months would clear the minds of the police to enable   officers to look at a Black person as equal to every other human being in America.

Civil Rights which was proposed by the late President J. F. Kennedy in 1963 and enacted in 1964 were civil/social and political rights of the citizens of the United States.  From the looks of things and events, it suffice it to say that civil and political rights are not enough.  The rights to earn a decent living by law through gainful employment is what is needed now.   Every citizen of the United States should be accorded the rights to an individual as a consequence of being human.  Human Rights are fundamental, and are understood as human rights that occupy a wide continuum that reflect the diversity of human circumstances, history, and values.  Article 01 of the UN Charter on Human Rights states as follows: that “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.  They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” 

The Charter contains 30 provisions that govern the rights of a person, irrespective of race, gender, religion and or origins.  The enforcement of the rights of a person, among others, to live with dignity and candor without any hindrance whatsoever is a sine qua non Act that law makers of the United States need to pursue at this time to stop the unwholesome and wanton killings of Black and other minorities in the US.  The collaboration with the President, Attorney General, the Department of Justice and the Congress is an imperative order to achieve success.   The enforcement of the Rights of the individual person will restore the dignity of man and woman in this Union.  The problem as it relates to race relations in America as seen by this author is not that of lack of police adequate training or lack of appropriate equipments. It is not enough to solve particular problems; what is needed to be done is to solve the cause of problem.  Blacks' unemployment is a great human problem in America.  Employment discrimination in spite of the Affirmative Action Program calls for a more fundamental policy that grant the right to employment by all citizens who desire to work.  The clause that requires the disclosure of one’s racial identity in an employment Application Form by applicant needs to be proscribed and ban and it should extend to all human activities that require the completion of an application form.  It is where the plight of Blacks begins in America; and it is where racism in its systematic determination of who gets what and the elimination of who should not, begins.