9 Reasons Why Systemic Racism Is American Genocide
The international crime of Genocide has been defined by the U.N. “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide” as any of a number of acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” This includes killing, inflicting bodily and psychological harm, inflicting conditions of life intended to bring about the group’s demise, and forcibly removing the victim group’s children, among other crimes. Besides fitting the very definition of genocide, there are eerie similarities between systemic racism in America and other Genocides such as the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, and the Rwandan Genocide. Here are 9 reasons why Systemic Racism is American Genocide:
1. Projection of Fear
A common denominator in genocides like the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, and the Rwandan Genocide, is that the governing bodies justified their brutality by having had claimed to be in great danger if the targeted group wasn't controlled. They justified these mass murders as a matter of self-defense. In reality, they were acting on their own fearful projections.
In America, unarmed Black Americans are killed at an alarmingly higher rate than any other race. The officers then claim to have feared for their lives. Police officers certainly have a dangerous job, but killing or beating unarmed people doesn't make it safer. Nonetheless, the law allows for the claim of self-defense whether the "threat" is credible or not, and that's why the perpetrators usually get away with it. On April 10, 2015, Officer Dante Servin even made the following statement: “Any police officer especially would have reacted in the exact same way I reacted…. I’m glad to be alive. I saved my life that night." He had killed unarmed Black woman Rekia Boyd by shooting her because her unarmed Black boyfriend had raised his cellphone while his back was facing the officer. Officer Servin is back to patrolling the streets of Chicago.
2. Use of Police and Military Force
The Hutu of the Rwandan genocide used police and military to carry out genocide. The CUP of the Armenian Genocide used military, paramilitary, and auxiliary forces to carry out genocide. The Nazis used military, paramilitary, and special operatives.
Here in the United States, militarized police are at the forefront of the oppression against Black Americans. They've also been getting help from the National Guard. During peaceful Protests in Baltimore, police have even gone as far as to intentionally strand kids on their way home from school, incite riots among them, and then arrest them. A report was leaked in April 2015 and obtained by CNN showing that the National Guard even referred to protesters as "enemy forces" and "adversaries" rather than American citizens when deployed to Ferguson. At about the same time as the leak, the National Guard was also deployed to Baltimore.
3. Inflicting Conditions of Life Intended to Bring About a Group’s Demise and Forcibly Removing Victim Group's Children
The American practice of racial profiling and mass incarceration targets young Black men more than any other demographic in the United States, which tears their families and communities apart. Once the prisoners (most of whom are convicted of nonviolent crimes) are sent home, they are returned home to impoverished areas that are already lacking adequate educational and employment opportunities. Once a person has a prison record, it becomes even more difficult to find work. Thus, he or she is made far more likely to commit a crime and end up back in prison. Parents are torn away from their children, and children are torn away from their parents due to this cruel practice. This kind of oppression is state organized. The oppression of genocides such as the Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, and the Rwandan Genocide were also state organized.
One heartbreaking example is the arrest of Kalief Browder in 2010. Kalief was 16 years old when he was stopped by NYPD officers and arrested for allegedly stealing a backpack. The victim of the alleged robbery told a very inconsistent story including changing the actual date that the the backpack was even stolen. There was absolutely no evidence that Kalief had stolen a backpack or that the said backpack ever even existed. Nonetheless, the judge set his bail at $10,000, an amount his family could not afford to meet. He spent over 3 years in Riker's Island jail waiting for his trail. Video evidence emerged showing prison guards beat and abuse him during that time. Though pressured, he refused to take a plea deal. He was facing up to 15 years in prison if found guilty of stealing a backpack. Then, suddenly in October 2014, his case was dismissed due to lack of evidence. The officers who kidnapped him and the judge who helped keep him captive are yet to be charged for their crimes.
4. Hateful Rhetoric and the Media's Role
During the Rwandan Genocide, the Kangura newspaper and the RTLM (Radio Télévison des Milles Collines) spewed hateful rhetoric against the Tutsi. The RTLM even referred to the Tutsi as "cockroaches" and encouraged the Hutu to "crush the cockroaches." The label of "cockroach" helped desensitize the Hutu to the humanity of the Tutsi.
In America, we use the term "thug". This hateful rhetoric is spewed by major networks such as Fox News and CNN. One example is the skewed coverage of the Baltimore protests. While the thousands of peaceful protesters went ignored, the focus of the Baltimore coverage was on the young people incited to riot. They were referred to as "thugs" by individuals such as CCN Host Erin Burnett for breaking windows and throwing bricks while the violent torture and murder of Freddie Gray was being glossed over. Although White riots take place at a much higher frequency in America, usually over sports and more recently over a pumpkin festival, the same networks and hosts never refer to white rioters as "thugs" and "criminals". Rather, they are referred to as "celebrants" and "fans". Fox & Friends Host Tucker Carlson went as far as to say that the Baltimore Protests are a "threat to civilization itself." He never referred to the police killings of over 400 Americans in 2015 alone as a threat to civilization though.
5. Killings Didn't Take Place All at Once, but have Been Extended Over a Period of Time
The Holocaust started in 1941 and ended in 1945. The Armenian genocide started in 1915 and ended in 1916. The Rwandan genocide started in April 1994 and ended in July 1994. The genocide in the Darfur started in 2003 and continues today. The killings never took place all at once, but rather over extended periods of time.
Despite similarities, this American genocide is unique to any other genocide in that Africans were stolen away from their homelands under conditions of extreme cruelty and forcibly brought to the Americas by American colonists who were attempting to increase profitability through cheap human labor. These same colonists were simultaneously inflicting genocide upon the Native populations as well. What started in 1619 as American slavery continues in evolved forms today. For example, privatized prisons are extremely profitable. Privatization forces prisoners to pay high prices for their own imprisonment, making prison owners rich. Subsequently, rich prison owners recycle much of the profit back to politicians as campaign contributions. Just as in the days of slavery and in dealing with slave revolts, White America continues to inflict extreme violence and abuse against Black populations, and then demand that their response be peaceful and compliant to the same laws and law enforcement systems that keep them oppressed. Anything else would not be profitable. In turn, as with other genocides mentioned, the perpetrator defines and depicts the target victims as a "dangerous" group that needs to be controlled. This allows the killings and destruction to continue. They never happened all at once. Rather, the killings have continued over an extended period of time and still continue to this day.
6. Inexplicable Cruelty
When Americans look at the images of death pits and collections of skulls that had emerged from horrific events such as the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, and the Rwandan genocide, we are amazed that it is possible for human beings to be so calloused and barbaric. We believe that nothing so horrific occurs on our soil.
Although in America, we don't have a habit of collecting skulls to account for the many victims of our genocides, video and audio footage now evidence shocking degrees of cruelty and abuse. When Eric Harris was shot in Tulsa by Reserve Deputy Robert Bates on April 2015, the other officers on the scene saw it fit to pin him to the ground, one officer even with his knee on his head. Harris cried out in pain. The officers told him to shut up. “I can’t breathe,” Harris cried out. “F--- your breathe,” was an officer’s response. An hour later Harris was dead. To escape the stress of the situation, Reserve Deputy Bates went on vacation to the Bahamas. Similarly, in July 2014, Officer Pantaleo choked Eric Garner to death as he cried out “I can’t breathe!” Yet, Officer Pantaleo continued to choke, and Garner died. Not one of the other officers on the scene thought to stop him. Officer Michael Slager laughed due to pumping adrenaline while speaking with his boss right after killing Walter Scott by shooting him in the back in April 2015. Michigan officers celebrated the brutal beating of unarmed African-American Floyd Dent during a traffic stop in January 2015. Back at the station they fist bumped each other and reenacted beating him, repeatedly punching him in the head, choking him, and using a Taser on him repeatedly as he was pinned to the ground. They did this as they cleaned his blood off their uniforms right in front of him as he was laying bleeding with broken ribs, humiliating him rather than getting him medical attention. Not even one other officer in the station intervened, but rather, casually went about their business. These are just a few of countless horrific examples of inexplicable cruelty.
7. Whistleblowers are Punished
A common denominator in genocide is the skewed depiction of good vs. evil. For example, during the Holocaust, a patriot was one who consented to the established authority of Nazi Germany. A traitor was one who questioned or opposed the established authority. And traitors were punished.
Currently in America, there is a high price to pay in breaking the blue wall of silence. Detective Joe Crystal of the Baltimore Police Department reported two fellow officers for brutally beating a handcuffed suspect after placing him in a back room. After that point, he started to be bullied by his fellow officers. He was being called a "snitch" and a "rat" to his face. He would call for back up and no one would arrive. He had a dead rat placed on his car parked at his home. Twitter accounts were being created with his picture aimed at harassing him. His career was destroyed and he was run out of his department. He currently has a pending law suit. There are consequences for civilian whistleblowers as well. Ramsey Orta, who filmed Officer Pantaleo murder Eric Garner on the street was arrested by NYPD officers a month later for allegedly placing a gun in the waistband of a teenager. Though no evidence was produced, a grand jury decided to indict him based on the word of the police officers. In the meanwhile, a different grand jury decided not to indict Officer Pantaleo despite the video footage of him choking Eric Garner to death.
8. Further Projections of Fear Against the Targeted Victim Group
Last year, after the tragic and senseless murders of two innocent Brooklyn police officers, Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos, the NYPD wasted no time in blaming the protesters and the city mayor for the deranged actions of a mentally ill individual. This was a great opportunity to indoctrinate apologists with more fearful projections of the “scary Black man” that needs to be controlled. Rather than focusing on inadequate gun laws and a broken mental health care system, blame was projected onto the #BlackLivesMatter civil rights movement. The #BlueLivesMatter movement and Pro-police rallies started to pop all over the country to counter the growing #BlackLivesMatter movement.
One example is when Cleveland Police hosted a “Sea of Blue” Pro-police Rally just weeks after the fatal police shooting of Tamir Rice, a Black Cleveland sixth grader playing with a toy gun on November 22, 2014. Cleveland police urged their apologists to march in support of the police because it seemed that it suddenly became more important than ever for officers to seek protection from violence. Never mind that the mainly peaceful protests in Cleveland with no major incidents occurred as a response to lethal violence executed by a Cleveland police officer against a minor. A crowd of about 2,500 almost completely Caucasian police officers and civilians from the greater Cleveland area wearing blue marched the downtown of the predominantly Black city of Cleveland in the December of 2014. Many demonstrators spoke of slain officers among their loved ones. Although honoring officers slain in the line of duty is in and of itself not a bad thing, it made no sense to use it to counter the #BlackLivesMatter movement which seeks justice for unarmed Black victims of police Brutality. Tamir Rice was not a cop killer. Neither were any of the unarmed Black Americans that the #BlackLivesMatter movement is seeking justice for. Again, we are dealing with a fearful projection of the targeted victims, not the reality.
9. The Rewriting of History and Collective Denial
100 years after the Armenian Genocide, Turkey still denies it's occurrence. Turkish leaders have even worked towards falsifying historic records. To this day, as the violence still rages in the Darfur region of the Sudan, The Sudanese government still denies any connection to the Janjaweed who are carrying out the destruction.
In the United States, we too, deny our genocides. We deny our genocides to the point that we are continuously rewriting our own history. Many a conservative today invoke the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in a misguided attempt to shame modern day protesters and rioters while presenting him as a conservative icon. But the truth is that the same conservatives who oppose the modern #BlackLivesMatter civil rights movement today also hated Dr. King in his day. Though regarded a hero now, he was was one of the most hated public figures in America up until his death and martyrdom. If he were alive now with his radical vision for racial justice, he would be regarded as an enemy of both the conservative party and the police apologists alike. In his own words, in his "Other America" speech, Dr. King said, "...And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.” Yet, we live in an America that still wants to insist that we are post-racial. This collective denial serves a great purpose to White America since a genocide can not be stopped while it's very occurrence is being simultaneously denied.
Become a Community Contributor.
