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‘You guys used to be slaves’: Racism against Black people
The White policeman’s brutality in the viral video was unspeakable. A handcuffed Black man named George Floyd lay on the ground groaning and repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe” to the officer who knelt on his neck for eight minutes, ignoring pleas from distraught passers-by who were concerned that the man was going to die.
Floyd, 46, later died in hospital, the latest victim of US police brutality against Black people. According to The New York Times, he had worked as a bouncer at a restaurant in Minnesota where the incident happened. And he did not pose any danger to the officer considering that he was handcuffed.
The officer did not seem bothered at all as he brought the full force of his weight onto the victim’s neck. His left hand was in the pocket as he nonchalantly continued pinning the man to the ground with his knee. Another police officer simply looked on. Media reports said four officers were responsible for the brutality and had all been fired, but no sacking renews life.
For people who keep track of news and current affairs in the US and other parts of the world, there is nothing new in this incident, of course. That Black people are treated appallingly badly in nearly all parts of the world is par for the course. It may not be happening on a daily basis, but whenever it happens, it is appalling and shocking.
Why they have done this to us baffles me. We have never fought wars to colonise anyone. Yes, African chiefs sold people into slavery, but they sold Black people, not non-Black people. And if there were no buyers of slaves, there would be no sellers.
We have never looted natural resources of countries of non-Black people. When we have done some looting—for example, when Uganda invaded the DR Congo and its soldiers stole the country’s mineral wealth—the looting has been Black on Black. History does not have examples of Black people mistreating non-Black people. It is the other way round.
Some people blame racism on uneducated, ignorant people, but the truth is that many people who are not ignorant and are educated, many people in developed nations with large numbers of well-educated people, are dreadful racists.
In July 2013, a former vice-president of the Italian Senate, Roberto Calderoli, likened Italy’s first Black minister for integration, Cecile Kyenge, to an orangutan. An MP named Mario Borghezio called her appointment “shitty”.
“Africans,” Borghezio said, “are Africans and belong to an ethnic group very different from ours.” He only apologised to Kyenge, an ophthalmologist who was born in the DRC, after a barrage of criticism.
Where Black people are concerned, a school dropout can be as racist as a university professor. And if you are Black and dealing with non-Black people in Europe, North America, Asia, Latin America, sometimes your skin colour is what informs how they will judge and deal with you.
That is how Black people are treated. The racism is shocking.
Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, said: “They treated him worse than they treat animals.” But I think animals are treated even more humanely. In fact, some countries where racism is still a major problem have entire organisations fighting for the rights and welfare of animals. In the United Kingdom, which is no stranger to racism, they have what they call the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Yet in the same country a British Black MP was once told as she stood in a lift: “This lift really isn’t for cleaners.” And in 2015, a young White woman who was involved in an altercation with a Black man on a train told him: “You guys used to be slaves.”
The passengers on the train, most of them White, just looked on.
Countries such as the US, Britain and others that claim to be champions of democracy embarrass themselves by treating Black people as if they are sub-human. They need to do better. Now is the time to do that.
The writer is a journalist and former
Al Jazeera digital editor in charge of the Africa desk
[email protected] @kazbuk
