US police suppress African-Americans – analyst
An analyst says police forces in the United Sates act as a force to suppress black communities and indigenous people, Press TV reports.
Referring to the recent killing of black citizen Antonio Martin, Omali Yeshitela, chairman of African People’s Socialist Party, told Press TV that, “The reality is that when we look at this particular death, we can see evidence of police violence throughout the country against African people and it is something that we are going to continue to see as long as African people exist in this country as subjects and colonized people.”
He said the US is now exposed to the world, and people are beginning to understand that the violence that the US is exporting to different regions of the globe has its roots inside America.
“It is no accident that the majority of people who are in prison in this country, who suffer poverty and oppression in this country, are Mexicans, Africans, and indigenous people,” Yeshitela said.
He also said that black people in the US must have control over their lives and also over police forces, that is why blacks have called for a grand jury consisting of black members in Ferguson for examining the facts related to the killing of unarmed black citizen Michael Brown.
Martin, 18, was fatally shot by police officers at a gas station in Saint Louis, Missouri, late on Tuesday. He was the second Afro-American teenager, after Brown, to be killed by police in Missouri.
Protests have been going on across the United States over the police killings of black men and grand juries’ refusal to indict responsible officers.
Based on a study by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, 313 African-Americans were killed in 2012 by police officers, private security guards and members of the public, and in most cases the perpetrator was not indicted.