Police violence and racial profiling of young Black men in the United States have been highly publicised for decades. Urban rebellions in the United States are closely tied to or triggered by police violence. The high profiled and widely disseminated beating of Rodney King by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department in 1991 and the sexualised and physical violence against Abner Lumina in 1997 by a New York City police officer. Both cases of police brutality received expansive media coverage and have remained etched into the memories of many North Americans. And now with the prolific use of social media and access to global news channels the problem has been highlighted further.
Given America’s history with chattel slavery and systemic racism within its police force and judicial system it comes as no surprise. For centuries Black males in the United States have been deemed a threat to the civilised White society and the state, with their physical strength being feared and exploited for free labour and breeding purposes to facilitate the development of industrial capitalism, and the exaggerated fears of the racist, patriarchal and anti-working class system meant they had to be contained at all costs to protect society and to maintain social order.
Undeniably, the constructed image of the dangerous buck has been imprinted on the imagination of Americans through Hollywood films, newspapers and the portrayal of Black men in sports. The controversial 1912 film The Birth of a Nation further fuelled the depiction of Black men as sexual aggressors, predators and dangers to society in general and White women in particular.
Arguably, law enforcement systems have relied on these portrayals to justify the over-surveillance and, in some cases, murder of unarmed Black men not only in the US but also in Canada and even in the United Kingdom. Yet in our national and international conversations about police violence and racial profiling we only seem focus on the United States, leaving many ignorant to some of the most vicious forms of police aggression targeted against Black men and women in other parts of the world.
For instance, the relationship between the police and the Black community in parts of Canada has shared a similar history to that of the US. In 1978, there was the shooting death of 24-year-old Buddy Evans followed a year later by Albert Johnson in Toronto; both men were unarmed, both shot be White police officers who were subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing. Dozens of unarmed Black men were killed by White police officers in Canada from 1987 onwards. In one instance the victim of police gun violence was a young Black woman, Sophia Cook, who was left temporarily paralysed.
While shootings of Black males by police have decreased in places like Toronto and Montreal, racial profiling has become a more widely used tactic to contain them. A recent study published in the Toronto Star revealed that, despite revising the policy of allowing police to randomly stop and question citizens without valid reasons, officers patrolling mostly Black populated areas of Toronto were still using the stop and search policy. This is not the first time the Toronto Star has reported on the improper profiling of Black youths, but it seems these stories don’t get the same media coverage and local support given to Ferguson and other police shootings in the US.
Not surprisingly, some UK citizens took to the street to express their outrage after the Ferguson verdict. British society has also had to grapple with years of police violence against Black men and women. Black men continue to be victims of police abuse and racial profiling in England with the most recent incidents occurring in 2008 when Sean Riggs died in police custody and in 2011 when Mark Duggan was shot and killed by police.
Ironically, even in countries where the majority of the population is Black, Black men and their communities are subjected to structural violence and repression at the hands of law enforcement. Brazil, Jamaica and South Africa, for example, have all had a long history of police brutality, which is often time aimed at poor Black working class men. The online Economist blog estimates that 2,000 Brazilian civilians are killed each year with little or no recourse under the judicial system.
Continue this article at Pambazuka News.
By: Lisa Tomlinson
12/11/2014
Photo Credit: Wiley Price and Lawrence Bryant