George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner. What do these names, along with plenty of others have in common: injustice, their life coming down to the hands of a heinous person, victims of racism, victims of coming across people who tend to have an extremely sick mentality and seek to condescend themselves. And to ask that what was the mistake made by the aforementioned people, well here it goes,
: One was choked to death by a police officer because he allegedly counterfeited a 20$ bill,
: One just went out for a jog and was brutally killed by three men, for a futile issue,
: One was a 12 year old, who was shot dead by a police officer after reports of a male who was “probably a juvenile” pointing a gun that was “probably fake” at passersby
Later the police confirmed themselves that the gun was a toy after the poor soul had been shot dead,
: One was wrestled down to the ground and choked by a New York police officer on “suspicion” of illegally selling cigarettes.
Although all of these incidents caused major bedlams in the world, but still this fact is hard to digest that one of the previously mentioned cases took place in 2014 and one of them took place in 2020.
Departments of justice fire people after incidents of this cadre take place, they announce of changes in the system, they announce of stricter punishments, and last but very obviously not the least, they announce that they will pledge forth and do everything they can to make people achieve racial equality. Then why do we still hear stories of innocent people be it adults or children succumbing to the cruel act that is - racism .
Its not just ordinary people who face this, well the wrongdoer seems to have money and loathe the fellow individual, so they practice this activity wherever or whenever they find the slightest of open spaces, given below are further mentions of a few renowned personalities facing racial injustice:
Footballer Mario Balotelli faced racism, upon his return to the Italian league with his club’s president also throwing away a racist remark which the club members’ later announced to be a “paradoxical joke”
Back in 2001, when a 19 year old Serena Williams was competing for a title, her elder sister Venus and her father Richard along with Serena herself received racist chants from the crowd with the N-word being used and allegations of “match-fixing” running around in the stadium
British author, Nadiya Hussain tweeted that she receives comments saying that she is “Too brown to be English. Too Muslim to be British.” Etc
It will be a rather long list if we state all such incidents, which is a thing of shame.
A few other cases were of, a group of African people being denied of entry to a McDonald’s in China, a Black Canadian being stopped from entering a subway, two black lawyers being denied of entry into a law society building .
Getting to know of all these events, one would obviously tend to wonder as to why a human being would carry out such a cruel act to a fellow human being ? Why do these people behave in a way and try to portray that they have a set vendetta against people of the other race ?
A group of psychologists from Stanford University stated in a study a few factors which they think contribute to people being racist. Basically they based it upon, the awareness that a person persists, in-group loyalty and intergroup competition.
In-group loyalty meaning that when a group of people tend to have a close circle/group then in that case they are likely to treat people from outside of their circle less favourably.
To put it this way, the horrific events of the death of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, etc. are a consequence of a larger system that people ignore and do not understand.
The protests that emerged after these incidents showed solidarity that the present youth carries with the community, after flocks of people emerged in large groups at different places around the world to show their opposition to such activities and to also prove that in the future the people won’t be docile if such an activity takes place.
Racism is not just people disliking or mistreating others on the basis of race. Instead it is a system of advantage based on race. It is a hierarchy. It is a pandemic.
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