| PHOTO: | America is moving towards two societies, one black, one white — separate but unequal Photo: Courtesy |
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By:
Denise Gordon
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| Posted:
Jul,27-2016 13:15:36
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I was told to write more about my reaction to all things Kenyan. So, I was going to write about streetlights finally appearing on my street, but once again, the US drew focus from the rest of the world and we could seem to talk about nothing else following the deaths of Philando Castile (Minnesota) and Alton Sterling, (Louisiana)--black men killed by white policemen; and 25--year-old Micah Johnson who killed five police officers in Texas.These were three incredibly different areas of the US melting under the same issue of racism.
I cautiously went through my Facebook feed as I heard there were graphic images of the killings and I did not want to see them. However, those same images were on DW, CNN, Al Jazeera and local television. I could not escape the gory details and images of how these men died. I felt the panic and despair of Castilles girlfriend who was in the car when he was shot by police for a broken tail light. He laid crumpled and dying in the driver’s seat next to her and their daughter in the back seat and the gun of the police officer still focused on his bloodied body. I do not know how she even had the clarity to record a video, because a sudden move to calm her daughter or even reach for her phone could have also resulted in her death.
White America does not get it and I am not sure if Nairobians can grasp that unarmed black American men are being executed for selling cigarettes on the streets, carrying skittles or a wallet in their pockets, broken tail lights on their cars or just plain walking and driving while being black. How are these benign actions reasons to be gunned down by law enforcement? Four countries have issued travel warnings against the US. You have to love the irony, given the number of travel warnings the US has issued against countries around the world, including Kenya.
However the irony is more profound as we have been dealing with this issue long before today, and will continue long after tomorrow.The white policeman finds himself at the very centre of the revolution now occurring in the world. He is not prepared for it--naturally, no one is--and, what is possibly much more to the point, he is exposed, as few white people are, to the anguish of the black people around him. One day, to everyone's astonishment, someone drops a match in the powder keg and everything blows up (and people) demanding to know what happened. What happened is that African Americans want to be treated like humans.
A year after the 1967 riots (in the US), the Kerner Commission, appointed by then--President Lyndon B Johnson, produced a report stating that, "Our nation is moving towards two societies, one black, one white--separate but unequal."
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