Racial Conflict: Obama’s Paradoxical Legacy
Since Barack Obama came to power in 2009, racism’s proverbial match seems to have been lit once again within a country historically marked by slavery and segregation.
Published in El Mundo (Spain) on 23 September 2016 [link to original]
Translated from Spanish by Conor Lane. Edited by Rachel Pott.
Posted on September 29, 2016.
The magnitude of the disturbances that have occurred over the course of the past few nights in Charlotte, following the death of an African-American man who was shot by police, has cast a spotlight once more on the diabolical combination of factors at play within the United States: widespread racial segregation, law enforcement’s use of undue force and a weak control over firearm ownership.
The officers who killed Keith Lamont Scott in a parking lot this past Tuesday had been driving around the area hoping to arrest a different man. During the course of the operation, they ran into Lamont. According to police, he was armed and “posed an imminent, deadly threat.” According to family members, he was carrying a book. The only thing known for sure is that North Carolina’s governor had to declare a state of emergency yesterday in Charlotte and order the deployment of the National Guard, a force bearing similar armaments to the U.S. Army, to try and control this new episode of civil unrest that, for now, has left a multitude of wounded, including two from gunshots. Meanwhile, Tulsa, Oklahoma, has also been experiencing tension, as the place where Terence Crutcher, a 40-year-old, unarmed African-American man, was killed this past Friday.
http://watchingamerica.com/WA/2016/09/29/racial-conflict-obamas-paradoxical-legacy/
