Loading ...Race in the US: Reflections of an Arab-American
Over the last year, the number of unarmed African Americans killed both by citizens and police has topped 1,000, and the political inaction, as well as citizen-driven campaigns to support the police and people who have committed these acts, have heightened the race war climate and fuelled unbearable hostilities.
Some say social media has hyperbolised what was there all along. Others see the militarisation of the police force as over-arming already zealous law enforcement. Despite direct video of many of these killings, consequences are never felt, and many others then feel enabled to commit similar acts. Justification rather than justice.
Unbearable acts
These unbearable acts, which we can dial up on Youtube with the right key words, transport me to the dining room of my childhood home. We had a television, like many families of the early 1960s, but ours was out of reach. It sat in the upper corner of the dining room, and even my father had to stand on a chair to reach it.
As children, we did not choose what we watched or when. My parents selected our programmes: half an hour to an hour of harmless family comedies – nice families, white families, who ate meat and potatoes and wore sneakers to school. Each story was a lesson about jealousy or greed or cheating. The kid always learned his lesson.
Any other programming was for my father – who, after being in his store for 12 hours, needed to relax. He loved Westerns: Gunsmoke and Bonanza . Most nights he watched the news – Walter Cronkite clearly guiding us through the Bay of Pigs, the death of JFK and the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of the president.
We did our homework at the table during the news, catching the end of the Cold War and witnessing the beginning of another struggle – the fight for the Civil Rights Act. Nightly reports of marches, of speeches, of campaigns and negotiations mixed with the violent response of the police, the governors and of the white racist population of the South. Marchers were beaten, dogs were sent in to attack them; many were boldly executed.
My parents, who protected us from thrillers and adult shows, did not shield us from seeing this piece of history. Whenever Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech, we attended around that dining room table, his dreams ringing in our ears, shaping our ideals as new Americans.
Source: www.aljazeera.com