White supremacy in North America is a culture that has been practiced since the first group of white people arrived in this part of the world and continues to this day in the 21st century. It has morphed from the blatant murder of the indigenous people and the barbaric enslavement of Africans for centuries to today where white police routinely kill unarmed African American men, women and children without being held accountable.
2. Regardless of the noises made by those who say they do not see colour; the fact
remains that Africans are judged by a different standard, sometimes even by
other racialized people. There are racialized people invested in the culture of
White supremacy.
They see themselves and others who look like them through White supremacist
lens. Even with the evidence of a video they will suggest that the victim of a
brutal attack by White police somehow deserved or provoked the attack especially
if that someone is an African woman or girl. When the video of Sandra Bland (who
died in police custody on July 13, 2015) surfaced the excuse was she should have
been deferential to the police.
Following the attack on the defenceless high school student in South Carolina
two racialized television personalities defended the action of the police. The
excuses included that in spite of the video of a brutal and unprovoked attack
there was no need to “rush to judgment.“ In the other instance there seemed to
be a rush to blame the victim of the attack because she had a cell phone in
class. Ironically if there had been no cell phones in the classroom there would
have been no evidence of the attack. The 2 entertainers have so angered many
members of the African American community that there is a petition asking that
they both be dismissed from the positions they hold. Much of the negative
comments made by racialized people seem to be a result of self-hate. This is
generational, the result of centuries of enslavement. During his May 1962 speech
Shabazz addressed the issue of self-hate: "Who taught you to hate the texture of
your hair? Who taught you to hate the color of your skin? To such extent you
bleach, to get like the white man. Who taught you to hate the shape of your nose
and the shape of your lips? Who taught you to hate yourself from the top of your
head to the soles of your feet? Who taught you to hate your own kind? Who taught
you to hate the race that you belong to so much so that you don't want to be
around each other?" Internalized racism or self-hate manifests itself in various
ways including always seeing yourself and others who look like you through White
supremacist lens.
The over policing of African bodies is a hold over from the time when almost
every African in the Americas was enslaved. This over policing continued even
after slavery was abolished with Jim Crow laws in the Southern US and similar
laws in other jurisdictions even in Canada. While in Canada the laws may not
have been as specific as in the USA they definitely existed. When Viola Desmond
was arrested at the “Roseland Theater“ in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia on November
8, 1946 she was charged with evading payment of a 1 cent tax. In reality she was
arrested because she sat in the section of the cinema reserved for White people.
Her refusal to move to the “Coloured“ section resulted in arrest, injury and a
criminal record that lasted until April 15, 2010 when she was pardoned
posthumously by the government. African Canadian Civil Rights activist Carrie
Best and her teenage son had suffered a similar fate on December 29, 1941 at the
same cinema. The disrespect of African women in North America is obviously not
confined to the USA. On August 10, 1993 Audrey Smith a 37 year old African
Jamaican woman visiting relatives in Toronto was stripped naked and searched by
police on a busy street (King Street West and Jameson Avenue) in Toronto. The
Black Action Defence Committee (BADC) called for the dismissal of the police
involved and the dismissal of then Toronto Police Chief William McCormack. BADC
described the stripping of Smith as a "dehumanizing, racist, illegal and sexual
attack." It was not until September 1995 that a three-person panel of inquiry
was held which not surprisingly cleared the police officers while Smith“s
character and reputation were shredded in the process.
In 2015 White supremacy continues to negatively affect the lives of Africans in
North America (the USA and Canada) with police in many cases acting as judge,
jury and executioner. Carding in Canada, stop and frisk in the USA continue to
create havoc in the lives of marginalized men, women and children. Police in