Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Killings Of Unarmed African Americans

By Alta Alexander


This week the news that hit the headlines sometimes back about black deaths in South Carolina has been brought to rest. South Carolina has forty-seven percent of its population being the black people, but the irony is that eighty percent of people in the police department are white. The killings of unarmed African Americans bring out the memories of some of the atrocities that have been committed against the African American over the past years.

The jury found that the Mr T Slager policeman that had killed the unarmed person has performed the murder and was charged for it. Many across America felt that justice had been done because the video footage jot from the scene of crime shows that he had a case to answer. He defended himself by claiming that he did that for self-defense the claim could not hold waters because the evidence showed to the contrary. The video shows Mr Slager shooting Mr Scot when he was running and was 20 feet away. That proves that by virtue that Mr. Scot was unarmed he posed no danger to Mr. Slager at that distance.

The footage also reveals Mr. Slager handcuffing Mr. Scott then going to the point where the struggle began then picking something. The police officer then goes back to the position of the body and drops whatever he picked next to Mr. Scott. And it was not the only case of African Americans being killed; others include:

Recently, Michael Brown who is a teenager in Ferguson was killed by another policeman. Eric Garner was not having any arm and was only selling loose cigarettes but was again shot by police in Staten Island by choking him.

The one that spark protests across the nation is the twelve-year-old boy Tamir Rice, who was killed when playing with a pellet gun. Why would such things happen to black people? Why are they being killed by policemen without any reason?

The answer to the above question was revealed in Ferguson this week The suburb of Saint Louis has been a home to the blacks and has increased since 1990 from twenty five percent to sixty seven percent as at 2010. Despite these demographic trends, the structure of power has not changed over the years. When Brown was shot, the members of the council were white except for one person who was black.

No African American was servicing in any school board, and this unbalanced representation must be an indicator of the oppression the black people have been going through in the hands of the police department. Reports indicate that blacks got harsher penalties for the same crimes by the white people.

The ruling that was given was aimed at settling the record on the tendencies of racism. The heinous crimes have attracted lots of protests since August, and they shape municipal elections. Some of the candidates vying for these posts joined in the protests. It is, therefore, imperative to the residents of these regions to overhaul the politics of the region to prevent such things from happening again. Each group should be represented in councils so as to reduce instances of a given group being favoured.




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