Rasismen i USA

I samband med begravningen av Trayvon Martin, den unge svarte killen som blev mördad av en självutnämnd vakt i Sanford, Florida, för ett tag sen, genomfördes en stor demonstration igenom Sanford. Kraven i demonstrationen var att fallet skulle utredas ordentligt och mannen som dödade pojken, George Zimmerman, ska gripas.

Fallet Trayvon Martin är inte något unikt i USA även om det framställs på det viset. Rasismen i USA är institutionaliserad, inbyggd i samhället och segregationen är enorm. Bara några veckor efter mordet på Trayvon Martin hade flera andra liknande mord ägt rum:

On March 14, a few weeks after Trayvon’s murder, police in Del City, Okla., killed Dane Scott Jr., an 18-year-old Black man, after pulling him over for a traffic stop. Scott–who the cops say was armed when they killed him, although no weapon has been produced–was shot in the back by police. He is among the latest African Americans killed by police this year, in a long list that includes Ramarley Graham in New York City, and Stephon Watts and Rekia Boyd in Chicago.

Then came the murder of Shaima Alawadi on March 21, one week after Dane Scott Jr. died.

The mother of five was viciously beaten into unconsciousness with a tire iron in her home in El Cajon, Calif. She died five days later after being removed from life support. According to Shaima’s daughter, who discovered her mother’s body, the killer left a note near Shaima, an Iraqi Muslim who wore a hijab, which read in part, ”Go back to your country, you terrorist.”

Yet police said in a statement, ”Evidence thus far leads us to believe this is an isolated incident.”

Det handlar inte om isolerade företeelser eller om enstaka incidenter. Det handlar om ett mönster i det US-amerikanska samhället. Sen USA skapades har det varit inbyggt i samhället:

SPEAKING ABOUT the murder of Trayvon Martin, President Barack Obama said that we would all have to do some soul-searching to ask how such a killing could happen. But an honest look at racism in the U.S. reveals that these killings are neither isolated, nor complicated, nor surprising.

Trayvon, Shaima and others are the latest victims of a deeply bigoted society, and their killings are the bitter fruits of the most recent trends in institutional racism.

Racist violence has been a feature of U.S. society since the founding of the country. Both before and well after 1776, establishing the U.S. involved settling a land that already had inhabitants–the indigenous of America were subjected to a racist genocide. The enslaved Black population endured tremendous violence. And wave after wave of immigrants to the U.S. has been met by racist brutality.

In other words, racist violence in the U.S. is as old as the country itself.

För att komma tillrätta med problemen med rasism i USA krävs alltså betydligt mer än vad som krävdes i demonstrationen i Sanford. Det räcker inte med att enskilda gärningsmän fängslas och åtalas, det räcker inte med att enskilda fall uppmärksammas och utreds. Utan det krävs omfattande förändringar i det US-amerikanska samhället.

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