By Manny Otiko
America likes to view itself as the preeminent nation on the planet. We have the strongest military and we currently have the biggest economy, although that is going to be overtaken soon by China. However, there are some major problems in American society, especially the way it treats racial minorities. And this is pretty glaring when you look at the statistics.
Mark Twain once said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics,” but statistics tell you a lot. If stats show that black men with college degrees face worse employment prospects than white men with only a high school education and a criminal record, that tells you there is a problem. If statistics from the Innocence Project show more than half of the people freed from death row are black, that shows there is a problem. If statistics show that even though the New York Police Department (NYPD) stopped and frisked black and Latino men at a higher rate, white people were more likely to be found in possession of drugs and firearms, that shows there is a problem.
America’s treatment of racial minorities, especially black men, is an international embarrassment. America has no business going around the world pointing its finger at other countries for human rights abuses, when the same thing goes on here. Some countries which have been criticized by the U.S. are pushing back. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei took to Twitter to lash out at America for being hypocritical. He tweeted, “It’s ridiculous that even though US President is black, still such crimes against US blacks continue to occur.” This is ironic, because Khamenei is the leader of a country that executes people for adultery, drug trafficking and corruption.
China, a country that censors the Internet, arrests political dissidents and harvests the organs of prisoners sentenced to death, attacked America in a 2013 report on human rights abuses in the U.S. The report stated that, “If the United States wants to be the self-claimed human rights judge of the world, though China and most countries do not agree, it first needs to sweep its own doorsteps.”
There are plenty of glaring cases of human rights abuses in the United States that warrant investigation from the United Nations and Amnesty International. The mass incarceration of black men, the flawed death penalty system, which has likely killed hundreds of innocent people, and the American prison system, which is rife with rape, torture and exploitation. According to the organization Stop Prison Rape, 200,000 men are sexually assaulted in jail every year.
Unfortunately prison rape is not talked about and when it is, it’s usually used as a punchline. The Guardian points out this might have to do with who’s being victimized. Steven W. Thrasher writes, “Prison rape has become a staple of American comedy because nothing is as hilarious as bad people getting their comeuppance – especially if they are black men … And that’s funny because of who is affected: while 678 per 100,000 white men are incarcerated in America, 4,347 black men per 100,000 are.”
It’s pretty much the same with the death penalty, Americans don’t care about innocent people being killed or falsely imprisoned for decades, as long as they’re mainly poor black men. As former drug dealer Freeway Rick Ross said they are “undesirables.” Middle class and wealthy white people are not suffering from false imprisonment.
However, when black people do try use the legal system to address these wrongs, they are often frustrated. Anthony Ray Hinton, a black man exonerated after 30 years on death row, has not received an apology from the state of Alabama or financial compensation. The families of black men killed by the police receive large settlements, but that won’t bring back their loved ones. It seems cities are more than willing to pay off victims of police abuse just to keep them quiet. Baltimore has paid almost $6 million to the victims of police abuse since 2011. According to the New York Post, the city of New York paid more than $185 million to settle claims against the NYPD in 2011. The city just paid the family of Eric Garner, the Staten Island man choked to death by local police, $5.9 million.
As famed NYPD whistleblower Frank Serpico said in a 2014 Politico article, “the police are out of control.” And they don’t take too kindly to anyone who has the temerity to point out their crimes. Both men who videotaped the fatal encounters between police and Eric Garner and Freddie Gray have been arrested. Feidin Santana, the man who videotaped a South Carolina cop shooting a black man in the back, initially feared coming forward. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has been called the “worst cop in America,” runs his county like a corrupt, third-world despot. Arpaio had former District Attorney Andrew Thomas target anyone who spoke out against him. And when The Phoenix New Times ran stories critical of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department, Arpaio had the paper’s founders, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, thrown in jail on minor charges. The charges were dropped five days later and Maricopa County settled the case for $3.75 million.
Additionally, police officers rarely face harsh punishment for their crimes. Bay Area Rapid Transport officer Johannes Mehserle did less than two years in jail for killing Oscar Grant. To put this into perspective, Tulsa County reserve deputy Robert Bates will only face four years in jail, if convicted on manslaughter charges for the death of Eric Harris. However, a group of black Atlanta teachers involved in a cheating scandal were initially sentenced to 20-year sentences (seven years in jail and 13 suspended.) The judge later reduced the charges to three years.
The American political and legal system has failed to address the widespread human rights abuses of black people. And until it does, American cities will continue to go up in flames. Rapper and activist Jasiri X says violent protest eventually causes change. When protesters took to the streets in Ferguson, Mo., to protest the killing of Mike Brown, it eventually led to an investigation by the Justice Department, which revealed the city relying on fines, mainly from the black community, to balance the budget.
The Justice Department report eventually led to the resignations of Ferguson city officials including the chief of police, a municipal judge and the city manager. Jasiri X said it’s unfortunate it takes violent protests to get the attention of the government, but this has been a long-standing problem. He has addressed this in his 2012 song, “Do We Need to Start a Riot?”
“This is a country that don’t really respect non-violent protest,” Jasiri X said. “If violence is not the answer, why is the military budget so big?”
“This is a country that don’t really respect non-violent protest,” Jasiri X said. “If violence is not the answer, why is the military budget so big?”
