The United States Empire:
Murdering People of Color Domestically & Abroad
By Solomon Comissiong
The United States government is, by far, one of the greatest violators of human rights in the world today. This fact has held true dating back to the US’s illegal and ill-fated conception. This fact especially holds true in regard to Euro-America’s treatment of people of color, the globe over.
The recent cold-blooded murder of a black man, Walter Scott, in South Carolina by a police officer named of Michael Slager, is by no means an anomaly in the US. This is something that has been happening for centuries within the illegally manufactured borders of the United States. This is a country that has a rich history of killing people of color. From the genocide of Native Americans to the holocaust of African/black people, the US has cultivated a societal fabric that sanctions these atrocities. These statements may sound like harsh accusations to those who are psychological victims of American indoctrination, however the facts are irrefutable. We should all know by now that police or so-called law enforcement murders one African/black person, roughly every 28 hours in the US. The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement presented this valuable data to the world in 2013.
We can ill afford to simply brush off the impact of America’s bloody and white supremacist legacy as something that is far off history. That naivety and intellectual dishonesty could not be further from the truth, especially since this country’s bloody, and white supremacist, legacy live on to this very day. The crimes of slave masters, which include numerous US presidents and so-called “founding fathers”, are crimes that are perpetuated presently. They take the form in things such as Mass Incarceration, rampant racial profiling and police brutality/murder. Does it really matter if someone is murdered while being hung from a tree or if they are gunned down in the manner Walter Scott was? Racially motivated murder is racially motivated murder; the techniques may have changed, however it is still cold-blood murder.
The origins of the US’s system of policing was predicated on the establishment of “slave patrols” in the south, whose primary purpose was to protect the “property” of white plantation owners. Their so-called “property” was enslaved African/black people as well as the land that was stolen from Native Americans. These slave patrols hunted down absconded slaves so they could be brought back to their devilish slave maters, only to continue to live out the remainder of their lives in the hell that was the plantation. Often they would be murdered in the process of being hunted down, or beaten to death upon being brought back to the shiftless slave masters. In 2015 many police departments operate much like their slave patrol predecessors, in that they murder unarmed people of color, just as was done to Walter Scott. If Michael Slager is sentenced to life in prison for his crime this will represent a novelty in the United States. Usually, police that murder unarmed black people get off “scot-free”. No pun is intended whatsoever. This kind of systematic injustice and crime against humanity is, as some say, “is as American as apple pie”. However the “pie” has always been rotten to its core.
The United States’ stranglehold on human rights abuses do not simply rest within the same country, they span worldwide. The United States Empire continues to systematically murder people of color throughout the globe. The US utilizes a variety of methods to carry out these nefarious deeds. Sometimes the US government gives the order to carry out indiscriminate drone attacks; sometimes it’s airstrikes, deadly sanctions and other times its good ole fashioned ground invasions. However, the end result is the same—-regime change, usurpation of other nations’ resources, and further global domination. And when it is all said and done, there are scores of innocent civilians who have had their lives ripped away from this earth by US imperialism. Millions upon millions of people’s lives have been taken, by way of US aggression and imperialism. This is done with most Americans not giving a damn, one way or the other. In many ways, it is the complicit nature, complacency and pervasive apathy within the United States that allows these crimes to go on in perpetuity.
Fork-tongued US president after fork-tongued US president, parade the globe lecturing people about human rights when it is they who abuse human rights as much as any nation. The US false propaganda machine is an evil, yet highly effective tool used by the US government and corporate media to trick its residents into believing that they are residing in a place that champions human rights. This could not be further from the dirty truth. Disingenuous politicians and media talking heads repeat their lies, over and over until they become “fact” in the minds of historically myopic Americans. However, they are still lies, plain and simple.
If more Americans had a better understanding of history, or current events, then perhaps they, at least, would know how despicable the crimes are that ‘their’ government perpetrates. They would see the hypocrisy when their elected/selected officials speak about alleged human rights violations in other countries. How can the US lecture anyone regarding human rights when their own house is riddled with the filth of structural racism, white supremacy, police brutality and wide spread imperialist aggressions? Simple, this is done with a dumbed down apathetic populace.
It is time more Americans demand an end to human rights violations, by their own government, at home and abroad. It is time Americans told US government officials to shut the hell up regarding their lecturing of other countries, until they have cleaned up their filth and start following examples of peace, internationalism, justice and diplomacy. Until this is done, history will continue to function like a current affair, repeating itself, over and over again. This is unsustainable for humanity. Now is the time, more than ever, that we collectively work to build a present, and future, replete with peace, justice and equity!
Solomon Comissiong (www.solomoncomissiong.com) is an educator, community activist, author, and Founder of the Your World News Media Collective (www.yourworldnews.org). Mr. Comissiong is also a founding member of the Pan-African collective for Advocacy & Action. Solomon is the author of A Hip Hop Activist Speaks Out on Social Issues. Solomon is also the writer and producer of the documentary, Hip Hop, White Supremacy & Capitalism: Why Corporations Infiltrated RAP Music. He can be reached at: solo@yourworldnews.org
