Racism: Police Injustice
in U.S. Leads to Even Greater Injustice (La Jornada, Mexico)
"It's no coincidence
that the United States imprisons more of its people than any other country (with
less that 5 percent of the world's population, it accounts for about 25 percent
of the planet's prison population) Moreover, it has a system that imposes the
most severe and unjustified sentences - beginning with the death penalty -
which is compounded by an inescapable racial component. That tendency, together
with aforementioned repressive zeal which has been exacerbated in recent weeks
and days, produces a vicious cycle in which acts of protest against injustice
lead to even more injustice."
During protests over the Ferguson case, 323 people were
arrested in Los Angeles and another 35 in Oakland. According to LA Police
Department spokespeople, 130 were detained for disturbing public order on Hope
and 60th Streets, after a group of protesters refused to obey an
order to disperse.
The event was one of many that occurred over the past week in the
wake of a grand jury decision exonerating a policeman who killed a young
African American man, 18-year-old Michael Brown on August 9.
Ferguson itself, following the murder, was convulsed with
violent protest against police brutality and racism, which led to
confrontations between protesters and law enforcement, and forced Missouri
Governor Jay Nixon to seek deployment of the National Guard on the streets of
the town.
The spread of demonstrations to a number of U.S. cities puts
into perspective the widespread societal discontent, at the root of which is
the undeniable historically racist orientation of our neighbor country's authorities
and its institutions of justice toward Black citizens.
The corollary to this discontent is an authoritarian, repressive
and inappropriate response on the part of police forces, which isn't limited to
a few California counties or to the town of Ferguson, but is part of a widespread
climate that criminalizes peaceful social protest.
Apart from the adoption of institutional decisions that are controversial,
mistaken and insensitive to public sentiment, the repressive scenarios described
above are the logical extension of a paranoid vision of society adopted by government,
and a propensity to populate its prisons as a form of social control.
Posted by Worldmeets.US
It's no coincidence that the United States imprisons more of
its people than any other country (with less that 5 percent of the world's
population, it accounts for about 25 percent of the planet's prison
population). Moreover, it has a system that imposes the most severe and
unjustified sentences - beginning with the death penalty - which is compounded
by an inescapable racial component.
That tendency, together with aforementioned repressive zeal which
has been exacerbated in recent weeks and days, produces a vicious cycle in
which acts of protest against injustice lead to even more injustice.
Such dynamics, unfortunately, lead only to deeper social
discontent. The authorities of our neighbor country would do well to remember what
happened in the city of Los Angeles in 1992, when 59 people died and more than
2,000 were wounded during a social upheaval triggered by the acquittal of four White
police officers who savagely beat Black motorist Rodney King.
It is somewhat paradoxical that this scenario is being
repeated now, during the first African American presidency in the history of
the United States.
![[Click Here for Jumbo Version]](http://worldmeets.us/images/US-Leading-Jailer_graphic.jpg){kind=link}