“What is it you most disliked? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstitions” – by Christopher Hitchens
It feels little demotivated and uncomfortable to write about any of the current events taking place across the world not because they are uncontrollable but occuring specifically in different spheres like earthquakes beneath the earth surface, continuous cyclones brewing over the ocean water all set to devastate the coastal cities. covid-19 which claimed more than 3 lakh lives as of now, and what is most disturbing among all these natural phenomenon is the human mindsets taking over a simple natural factor. Yes you assumed right I am writing about Racism.
The recent killing of George Floyd has sparked a downtrodden issue having the magnitude to affect the whole world both politically and emotionally. It generally was an extra straw which broke the camel’s back. To be little precise George Floyd was a black race African-American hailing from Houston who worked in Minneapolis, a city in one of the 50 states in USA, i.e., Minnesota. He was strangled to death by policeman kneeling over his neck for the activity which they thought of an offensive nature. He was arrested for suspectedly using counterfeited currency. His death has emboldened many faded and disappeared incidents of police brutalities against black race and brought them into public domain through various social media platforms all across the world which now attracting more and more people against police brutality as well as extending support towards marginalised black races.
Racism is a belief of discriminating people on the basis of their colour with the idea of establishing supremacy of one race over the other. Racism is not any new or recent emerged form of discrimination, it has been in existence from centuries ago. It was due to this sole facet that many of the historical events in globe directly or indirectly linked to it. Has anyone ever thought of a simple question as to why blacks are discriminated on many grounds despite having such an overwhelming majority of nothing less than 1.8 billion against the total population of the world which stands at 7.3 billion (sourced from many recent reports)?
Let me try to clarify this. In the pre colonisation era, Blacks basically based in Africa were less modernised but self-reliant, equipped with primitive tools but had large agricultural land and enough livestocks to feed themselves. All these were destroyed when colonisation took place in vast scale entailing almost Africa and many parts of Asia. Blacks were driven away to various plantations in USA and South American continent. Hence the grand childrens of these black slaves constitutes the 34 million population of blacks in USA. The other being native Americans,i.e, Indian American too had substantial amount of population but were reduced to minority from majority by the incessant intrusion and migration of Europeans which in USA are now known as White American. These migrants brought with them the cataclysm of ailments including the most perilous ‘spanish flue’ which took lives off almost millions of native Americans.
Racism as ideology
Ideology is nothing but the different direction which a person sets to walk in. Racism too took the shape of ideology in Hitler’s era. I wonder no one of my readers are unaware of Adolf Hitler’s tyrannys to Jews and the racist ideology prevailed across the Germany in 1950s. However, the kind of racism shaped in Germany was not of much differences in colour but in breeds and not completely but sporadically inspired by the racist ideology. Why Hitler killed millions of Jews. Was it out of threat or it is because he wanted to control Germany? The answer may be acquinant to many of the readers. It was out of that mindset or ideology which had always emphasised to establish the Nazis supremacy over the Jews.
Why did the death of Floyd became so outrageous and led people to streets??
This was not any new incident for black brutalities as thousands of blacks had been killed earlier by police directly of indirectly. One of the most infamous was the Death of Eric Garner in 2014 in New York by New York Police where he breathed his last with the words “I Can’t Breathe” “I Can’t Breathe”. There are innumerable cases like this happening daily in USA. Blacks could be heard saying that they are unable to breathe freely in their own country. The veracity in the fact in evident by the recent data accumulated by one of the leading newspaper which depicts that about 44 African-Americans per million are likely to be killed in police shootings against just 14 whites per million. They are 1.3 times likely to be unarmed compared to white people when they are killed by police. Only 2% of the police officers engaged in the killing get charged and are supposed to be faced with trial while 98% went acquitted.
Many reports reveals that neither African-American, i.e., Blacks in USA are socially active nor are they financially equipped. They do not have access to good medical health care facilities, equal opportunities in terms of employment, having very low income level with least basic facilities such as housing, etc. They stands no where in comparison with whites which has whopping financial benefits, good education and other basic amenities. However, silence too has its own limits and blacks taking their concerns to the streets makes it more clear. The atrocities by police have reached to the brims and now it would be nothing more cowardness than sitting at home. The last words of George Floyd reminds us of Eric Garner, both of their last words, i.e, “I can’t breathe” have become the symbol of freedom, truth, dignity to blacks and what encouraged them more is the attraction they pulled globally through social media amidst Covid-19 both emotionally and politically.
Aftermath
The situation is so grave that Donald trump had to stay in the White house bunker for more than an hour. Things have already been turned violent and may proceed to disrupt the nation more. Experts are seeing it as the peak point of polarisation and warned of bitter consequences as many hate groups like The base and Antifa are setting their foot in what they think as more opportune time. I will try to explain the polarisation in USA which, in my views has really reached its zenith, in my next work as situations in USA proceeds but would certainly say that USA Federal government must step in immediately in the matter without waiting for the right time to come or precisely without thinking about elections due in Nov this year where tough times awaiting Donald Trump and his team. Thousands of shops, malls are being plundered by protesters not alone in Mineopolis but in entire nation, agitations taking communal and polarised shape are happening daily and all this would choke the USA fight against Covid-19 which is the worst hit nation by pandemic in the world. At last what one could sense easily is that this matter is going to dominate whole elections as situations now are not favourable for Trump and his team and his top most priority as of now must be to resolve this matter at the earliest.
