THE recent waves of protests that have broken out across in the United States after the murder of a black American by four white policemen are not new phenomena. For decades there has been systematic violence against non-Caucasian people by the police in America.

Former US President Barack Obama was right when he warned that racism was thriving and still prevalent in the US after the June 2015 massacre in the historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina. He had also warned that people of US need to be vigilant against the dangers it posed as it was poisoning the minds of young people.

The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis at the hands of police has reignited anger across the US. The incident is a manifestation of the racial abuse that continues to plague a country in the 21st century which prides itself to be the champion of human rights in the world.

More than 52 years ago civil rights leader Dr Martin Luther King Jr. explained why black people took to the streets in the US. “A riot is the language of the unheard,” he said when there were calls for vigilantism to uphold the suffocating status quo.

Perhaps it is time the white leadership in America came out of its Afrikaans apartheid stupor, and took a liberal dose of its justice and equality for all irrespective of caste or creed prescription

One hopes that those demonstrating against racism and police brutality can bring change in the status quo.

Syed Tahir Rashdi

Shahdadpur,

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THE majority of white people in the US have looked down upon the blacks no matter how much they talk of racial harmony. The hatred erupts every now and then and the whole world begins to wonder what is wrong with America.

There is a cure. Right from the school level, American children have to be told that blacks are equals. It has to be fed into their minds that blacks can do everything as well as the whites. Lessons have to in their syllabi describing the achievements of the blacks who are America’s heroes.

Children should be told the story of Dr Daniel Hale Williams , the black cardiologist who performed the first heart surgery and founded the very first non-segregated hospital. The stories of Jessie Eugene Russell the inventor of digital cell phone. Children should be told that the spark plug was invented by a black man called Edmond Berger. The story of Bass Reeves , a tough black cowboy who captured 3,000 criminals .

A fresh look and reassessment of American mindset and way of thinking is required. The history of the glaring example of prejudices has to be told and re-told. The burning of the black community in 1921 in Tulsa Oklahoma which was often called Black Wall street should not to be forgotten. Bombs were dropped from air and hundreds were killed. Numerous other examples can be sited.

The memory of George Floyd is still fresh in one’s memory when there has been an addition to American police brutality. This time a 75-year-old man lies on a pavement bleeding from his ears. He was pushed over by the police. No respect for senior citizens and no respect for blacks.

Azmat Ansari

Karachi

Published in Dawn, June 10th, 2020