This looks like it's about race,
but it's really about a desperate
middle class, writes La Stampa columnist
Gianni Riotta.
Grand Jury Eruption in America has Little to do with Race (La Stampa, Italy)
"The
United States has twice elected an African-American president; it has senior
officials, joint chiefs of staff, university deans and
media chiefs belonging to various minorities, including Blacks. When will we
see a Turkish chancellor in Germany, a Jamaican on Downing Street, an Algerian
in the Élysée Palace and an Albanian in the Palazzo Chigi? Don't hold your breath waiting. But even if this isn't
the discrimination that the propaganda promotes, the crisis in the United
States is serious. The loss of status among the middle class, the decline in
well-paid jobs for workers without a degree and the ease of employing illegal
immigrants sets Whites and Blacks against one another."
Before the Lincoln Center theaters flourished again, the intersection
of Broadway and Columbus Circle behind Amsterdam Avenue was once part of a neighborhood
on the edge, where West Side Story-style gangs fought one another with fists
and knives. Now the major brands vie for window space and shoppers buy tropical
fruit at the organic market. On Wednesday evening, Christmas gift packages gave
way to protest signs, police garrisoned bicycle paths and a pair of helicopters
with searchlights and cameras crisscrossed at low altitude.
A procession of students and activists moved down Broadway -
the winding avenue built along what was once the sole path used by Manhattan Indians,
demonstrating against a New York grand jury for failing to indict the policeman
who caused the death of Eric Garner, a peaceful peddler who sold contraband
cigarettes. Garner was locked in a stranglehold which is prohibited by New York
police. The death of this man who was defenseless and at the mercy of police was
filmed, which shocked a country still prey to protests over an analogous
decision by a grand jury not to prosecute the policeman who shot Michael Brown
in Ferguson, Missouri. Grand juries almost always decide to indict, except in a
tiny 0.006% of cases.
The two cases differ. Brown was suspected of having robbed a
shop and assaulting the police officer trying to detain him. Two witnesses
upheld this thesis, while two accused the policeman. Since the law is to reject
indictment only in the absence of "probable cause," the case hung in
the balance. Eric Garner was unarmed, and his crime - selling contraband
cigarettes – is so insignificant that his arrest seemed exaggerated and his death
absurd. African-American victims and White police officers divide the two
Americas, right and left, and the world is watching. In Putin's Russia, the network
RT depicts the United States as a racist land (videos, right).
Is this really the case? No. The United States has twice
elected an African-American president; it has senior officials, joint chiefs of staff, university deansandmedia chiefs
belonging to various minorities, including Blacks. When will we see a Turkish chancellor
in Germany, a Jamaican on Downing Street, an Algerian in the Élysée Palace and an Albanian in the Palazzo Chigi? Don't hold your breath waiting. But even if this isn't
the discrimination that the propaganda promotes, the crisis in the United
States is serious. The loss of status among the middle class, the decline in
well-paid jobs for workers without a degree and the ease of employing illegal
immigrants setsWhites
and Blacks against one another.The former recall
that over 90 percent of all crimes are committed by Blacks or Hispanics; the
latter argue that police kill Black or Hispanic suspects almost every day.
Obama wanted to reconcile hearts and minds, but he couldn't. The majority of White
Americans (according to The Washington
Post) now believe that Blacks have more social protections: in colleges there
is great resentment over “quotas” that allow minorities with lower grades than
Whites (Asians excluded, since for them, a “quota” is nothing to overcome, particularly
on science faculties) to study at prestigious Ivy League institutions. The story
of Ferguson elicits opposing responses: for 63 percent of Whites it wasn't about
racism but only a legal matter; for 80 percent of Blacks it was racism (according
to ABC News).
Posted by Worldmeets.US
However, as confirmed by the differing reactions to the
death of poor Garner, this is not a Manichean crisis of White against Black. On
Twitter hashtagcrimingwhilewhite [#crimingwhilewhite – see Twitter feed below], many Whites are
confessing to crimes more serious than selling cigarettes on the street – and without
the police objecting. And if Ferguson has divided Blacks and Whites (Whites for
the accused policeman: 58 percent; Blacks for the victim: 81 percent) and
Democrats and Republicans (Republicans for the policeman: 78 percent; Democrats
for the victim: 68 percent) now Garner is being paid homageby conservatives and liberals – and this in a nation where
only 30 percent say they “have confidence in the police” and 70 percent declare themselves “skeptical” about
the forces of law and order. The Website Hotair.com
gathers statements by conservative commentators and citizens: “I'm not a
liberal. On Ferguson I am with the police, but to killa
person selling cigarettes on the street is deplorable.” Many people on the
right and left are demanding that the Department of Justice open a federal investigation
on Garner for “violations of civil rights.”
Relations between ethnic groups in America have always been
complex, and this crisis worsens them. The political paralysis between the
White house and Congress on the issue of immigration reform exacerbates tempers.
The country of Obama is not a nation of the Ku Klux Klan, but the dialogue
between police and minorities must be reopened, and schools in ghettos where petty
crime often brings the only income available must be invested in.
