THANKS to information communications technology, the United States (U.S.) — and by extension the world — last week witnessed disturbing news of two separate accounts of police shootings, and the shooting of police officers by an ex-US military veteran of the Afghanistan war.  In the instances of the police shootings, two black men were fatally shot by white officers. In the other instance, a black man using a sniper rifle launched an attack on the police, fatally shooting five and injuring nine other people. The police were providing protection to a protest in Dallas, Texas occasioned by police shootings of the two black men.

Persons both within the leadership and rank and file of America have posited that race is that country’s original sin, given that it played a significant role in the nation’s founding and evolution. The U.S. was built on systems of exploitation and notions of racial superiority and inferiority that saw enslavement of Africans, decimation of Native Americans, and entrenchment of inequality. These unsavoury characteristics, evident in that country’s DNA, are daily being manifested, notwithstanding laws and institutions being established to eliminate them.

Issues of race and police brutality have not escaped the attention of that country’s first black president, although that society prides itself in making decisions based on scientific evidence, and responding to the needs and outcries of its people.
As President Obama has often said, dealing with race is a complex issue that requires continuous work; and though that society has made progress in race relations, there still remains much work to be done.

Obama has also rejected claims that his ascension to office has realised a post-racial society.
Last week’s shootings proved him correct, and have highlighted the need for more work to be done in achieving the latter condition.

Given continuous outcries to the killings from people across the racial divide — inclusive of the White House, lawmakers, academia, media, aspirants to political office, and celebrities, to name some, though the task is steep and requires courage, political commitment and will, one senses that advocacy and activism will not wane, but would intensify.
Among the chants of demonstrators marching across cities in the U.S. in protest against the profilings and killings are ‘No justice, no peace, no racist police,’  ‘Stop killing us’, and ‘Black lives matter.’

The problem has also taken on a global life of its own, with a solidarity protest and march being held in the streets of London, Britain.

On both sides of the divide, the killings were senseless. On the part of black America, the incidents reinforce their concerns for the devaluing of black lives; the need to rein in police excesses; weed out racist and underserving cops from the force; and address racial profiling and criminal justice reform. Statistical evidence also shows that black and brown Americans are disproportionately profiled and targeted by police, and are incarcerated based on the types of offences considered criminal vis-a-vis the penalties they attract.

On the other hand, as black America justifiably cries out for parity and respect in the society, the shooting of white police officers by a black man — though he reportedly was not part of the protest and was acting on his own — is bound to have white America asking this question: ‘Doesn’t white lives matter too?’ Their concern will be made stronger with the sniper’s reported rant that he wanted “to kill white people.”

The answer in both instances is a resounding yes: All lives matter! But saying all lives matter has to go beyond the affirmative, to taking action through institutional strengthening via laws; reforms; the races taking time to talk with each other, as against talking past each other; being prepared to listen and empathise with the lens through which the other views the world; and where skepticism of the other exists, work together to fix same.

And what makes the U.S. story one with which we here can identify is that ours is a society of similar experiences, having similar negative characteristics that still remain today, and are equally deserving to be addressed — from the highest tier of leadership to the ordinary man and woman.

Race and racial issues are matters that some prefer to sweep under the carpet rather than move to have open, honest and frank discussions about, along with strengthening institutions to ensure respect and equality.
Police excesses have also marred our society, though it is fair to say that, within recent months, not much so. But cessation of police excesses needs to be a guaranteed, with an attached condition that should it ever recur, it would be dealt with within the framework of laws.

And while Europeans, once enslavers and colonisers, are not here in the majority, taints of racism and cries for justice among the six races are evident.

Given the similarities that obtain in both Guyanese and American societies, it helps not only to make what is presently taking place in the U.S. the focus of attention and conversation, but also teachable moments in the process of our development. For the truth is that where isms and injustices exist, there can be no peace.