have not learned the lessons of the past. This despite ardent campaigning by groups
such as Black Lives Matter and the greater prominence of black people in public life.
Audience Awareness
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African Americans comprise 12% of the US
population. But according to data for 2015-19, they
accounted for 26.4% of those killed by police in all
circumstances. Put another way, black people are three
times more likely to be killed by police than white
people, who form 61% of the population. While this is
not a new problem, the repeated, systemic failure to fix
it has become critical.
The second exacerbating factor is Donald Trump and
the unvanquished white supremacist thinking he
personifies. This vile legacy has deep roots in an
originally pro-slavery constitution, the blood myths of the confederacy, and late
19th-century Nordicism, eugenics and nativism, the period when the slogan
“America First” was coined.
Trump’s behaviour has been predictably irresponsible and inflammatory. While
mayors from Minneapolis to Atlanta and Portland struggled to maintain order,
rightly shaming those who used the Floyd tragedy to indulge in theft and arson,
Trump’s main concern was to look tough in front of his mostly white base. He can
kiss goodbye to the black vote in November.
The angry explosion was also a reaction to the societal stresses caused by the Covid-
19 pandemic – a third reason why this new episode in America’s unending racial
conflicts is different. The disproportionate impact of the virus on black people, in
terms of death and infection rates, has unforgettably dramatised the corrosive
inequality at the heart of American society. These protests will eventually cease. But
injustice, bigotry and social malaise will not – not until all Americans want it.
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