Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22 1/2 years in prison, but will likely serve just 15. The other seven and a half years, he will be eligible to be released (under supervision). Is that all?
Executing African Americans in broad public daylight by placing your knees on their neck for more than nine minutes until the last words they utter are calls of love towards their mothers and children and those all too famous words ‘I can’t breathe’. Prosecutors were seeking the maximum sentence of 40 years behind bars. 22 1/2 years means, in the words of Floyd’s brother, ‘you can kill a man in cold blood and get a slap on the wrist’. Chauvin’s case was a PR move to deflect attention away from the deeper struggles and challenges African Americans face everyday.
From harassment by the police to white Americans still waving confederate flags, to the countless murders by White Officers. The discrimination issue starts at the top, those who have the power to end this but either can’t or are unwilling to do so. The wider problem is portions of black Americans have joined this discrimination campaign whether they know it or not. Brainwashed by the ‘American Dream’; some black Americans forget they were brought to America as slaves and forced to build the country.
Case in point, black representatives in Congress who talk the talk but won’t walk the walk. The day they wake up and accept the reality; then they will boycott congress. Not run for it. The solution cannot be relied upon from Congress or the White House, Democrats and Republicans have come and gone and failed to tackle the issue. Not even protests will bring about change.
Demonstrations raise awareness, yes, but not change. Racism in America is inseparable from the settler colonialism capitalist system that America was founded on. So long as racism is tied to this capitalist system that exploits human beings for profit exists, racism is something black Americans will have to learn to deal with, for now.
Private security agencies who protect this system are just a formalized extension of the deep state, they just appear in the guise of police forces and federal forces. The origins of the American police come from what used to be black slave controls. Today, they are still killing and controlling black Americans.
The Western capitalist system puts profit over people. It’s not a case of one or two bad apples, the bad apples are part of a wide ranging discriminatory system. Take the Klu Klux Klan, founded in 1865 and waged a campaign of terrorism, violence and intimidation by white ‘settler’ Americans towards black communities.
The movement’s infamous trademark signature was lynching a black American overnight and leaving them hanging so the black community sees the body come sunrise. In the 1920’s it’s membership exceeded four million people nationwide. If that wasn’t bad enough, today the racist, terrorist group is still active under this same American system. Unfortunately, there are many other examples where the U.S. capitalist system allows issues such as racism to be accepted in society.
Take Hollywood and the American film industry for example. The amount of movies and Netflix dramas that brainwash and tap into the idea of white supremacy and depict black characters as beasts or violent people while white characters are brave cops and heroic people is also part of the problem. The answer lies in a civil rights revolution that replaces or undermines this racist capitalist system; so long as there is inequality, oppression, racial wage gaps, poverty or a justice system that disproportionately targets people on the basis of their skin color, racially, politically and economically exploits and dominates them. There must be real change. This is not a system you can tweak here and there to reform it in your favor, the system has to be replaced with a fair one that represents all as one.
The African American community are in the right and when the majority accept that they are in the right and that the truth is on their side then a revolution will naturally occur. In essence, today black Americans are not fighting for their rights, they are fighting for the lives. No justice no peace. It’s not just the United States where the knees of the authorities are being placed on the necks of the indigenous.
Just head north towards Canada, where, just like America, Thanksgiving Day is celebrated! A day that commemorates the arrival of settlers followed by centuries of oppression and genocide. For the natives of North America ‘Thanksgiving’ is a day of mourning and protest in a similar fashion to how the annual Nakba Day is a day of mourning and protest for the Palestinians. The indigenous people of a land that was stolen from them in 1948 by white settlers arriving from outside West Asia is referred to as Nakba day in occupied Palestine.
In Canada, Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, has asked the Pope to come and apologize for the recent discovery of the remains of some 1000 indigenous people whose bodies were found near Catholic run boarding schools over the past month in two mass graves.
This is the same Justin Trudeau who admitted he can’t recall how many times he wore blackface in his life. Not the exact role model is he? The origins of using ‘blackface’ at parties may need a little explaining. Until the mid 20th century, white actors used blackface when depicting black plantation slaves.
Using it today means you are essentially dehumanizing black people and reinforcing the idea that they are inferior to white people. The images of Trudeau using blackface emerged during his re-election campaign and just before the election. Perhaps that’s why he apologized a thousand times. But even a hundred thousand apologies from the Canadian government will not take away the pain from the native people of the land.
They say it’s the tip of the iceberg; the remains of children forcibly separated from their parents and taken away to live in catholic run, government funded residential schools. There, they were tortured, sexual abused, died and buried in unmarked graves in a cultural genocide. The Canadians did it far quicker than their American counterparts who went to war with the natives. In Canada they just wiped out a large portion of the younger generation.
There have been calls for a joint investigation by the Canadian government and the Catholic Church to probe the matter. But how can you ask the two parties that are responsible for this genocide to investigate themselves? The country must allow an independent international committee to lead a thorough investigation if Ottawa really wants to confront the true horror of its colonialism. An international organization is also needed to lead the way in finding the remains of the potentially hundreds of thousands of other children buried underground as the government is obviously unwilling to take on this haunting task. Why are the indigenous people of the land leading the way in searching for their loved ones.
Canadian officials must face accountability here, otherwise this disturbing, chilling reality will haunt the country’s officials forever.
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