Ottawa Citizen

U.S. citizens can change racist power structure

Blacks must vote for voice on councils, police policy

- MOHAMMED ADAM Mohammed Adam is an Ottawa writer.

The recent shooting death of an unarmed black man by a white police officer in South Carolina has resurrecte­d the debate on police attitudes toward blacks and race relations in U.S. law enforcemen­t.

Coming on the heels of a number of deadly encounters with police across the United States, the North Charleston shooting of Walter Scott by police officer Michael Slager has generated much discussion about why predominan­tly black communitie­s are policed by overwhelmi­ngly white officers who neither reflect the communitie­s they serve nor relate to them.

In Ferguson, the small Missouri city where last year’s police shooting death of Michael Brown ignited a firestorm, 67 per cent of residents are black. Yet, the police force was 94 per cent white at the time of the shooting. In North Charleston, 47 per cent of the population is black, 37 per cent white, and 11 per cent Hispanic. But 80 per cent of the police is white.

This is the state of affairs across many small U.S. towns and cities where predominan­tly black, Hispanic or Asian communitie­s are policed by overwhelmi­ngly white police forces. Many experts point to this phenomenon as the root cause of the tension between the minority population and the police that often leads to deadly conflict. No doubt African-Americans in particular have long been victims of institutio­nal racism and injustice, but they are not helpless in this ongoing battle for equality. In many cases, it is within their power to change the political system that underpins this injustice — if they choose to act.

Consider Ferguson. At the time of the Brown shooting, the six-member city council that ran Ferguson was made up of five white members and one black. The mayor is white. In North Charleston, seven of the 10 councillor­s are white, as is the mayor. Why a predominan­tly black town is governed by a council that is overwhelmi­ngly white is simply because many blacks — and minorities — don’t vote. They don’t participat­e in the election of the mayors and city councillor­s who make policies — on such things as policing — that affect their daily lives. They have to realize that, in the end, poor voter participat­ion hurts them.

Police officers are sworn to serve all people, and if officers do their job properly, the colour of their skin should not matter. But in many towns and cities the evidence suggests that colour does matter. In Ferguson, for example, a U.S. Department of Justice investigat­ion uncovered emails in which police officers and city staff exchanged racist jokes, with some of the offensive ones directed at President Barack Obama.

Ferguson has shown what people can do. In the last municipal election, only 12 per cent voted. A few weeks ago, 30 per cent showed up to elect two new black candidates and even up the council membership. There can be no doubt that a discussion about policing at the council table will be much different than before. It is unfortunat­e that it took a major tragedy to galvanize voters; and one would have thought that more than 30 per cent of the electorate would show up. Still, the result is encouragin­g, and if it is replicated in similar communitie­s around the country, the change would be significan­t.

Many people, especially minorities and the poor, tend to believe that voting doesn’t matter and that their votes in particular don’t count. They are wrong. The power to elect your own leaders is perhaps the most significan­t right in a free society. Everyone has it, and if black Americans and other minorities don’t turn out to vote for leaders who relate to them, share their values and aspiration­s and are sensitive to their concerns, it will be all the more difficult to prevent or address another Ferguson or North Charleston.

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