The following article is one of a series of accounts from students who recently returned from Arizona. They were part of a delegation that spent a week touring the state amid the enactment of controversial law SB 1070. The Center for New Community, a national civil rights organization based in Chicago, sponsored the trip, which included nine students from Washington D.C., New York, Chicago and Colorado.
By President L. Davis
On January 1, 2009 a young man was gunned down by a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) policeman.
Oscar Grant’s shooting sparked a wave of controversy, leading to a political clash along racial and social class lines. The conflict was especially evident in the labeling of his death. Those critical of the police handling of the matter considered Grant’s killing an execution; police supporters dubbed it accidental or involuntary manslaughter.
Many blacks, like myself, who have experienced mistreatment by Oakland police firsthand, believed we could have been in Grant’s shoes. Those old enough to remember likened the shooting to the treatment that poor blacks received in the 1990s from a notorious group of rogue cops known as the Oakland Riders. Connections were made even to the police brutality that led to the 1960s formation of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Officer Johannes Mehserle, the BART policeman, stated that he thought Oscar Grant had a gun, a common quote among police who use force against a victim found to be unarmed. What is it about the image of young black men that inspire this phrase to be used so frequently?
Recently I was granted the opportunity to help film a documentary in Arizona about the anti-immigrant movement. Like the Oscar Grant situation, Arizona ignited a national outcry when the controversial law SB 1070 was passed, a law viewed by many as a legalization of racial profiling.
Like the Oscar Grant situation, the unchecked policing and threat to people of color that come up through the US/Mexico border is a travesty. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. America has long been valued and championed as a land of justice, equality and freedom, yet has many all too familiar skeletons in its closet.
Danger lurks along the US/Mexico border in the form of vigilante border patrol groups. It seems that the U.S. Border Patrol allows these unofficial groups to do their ugly job. The state of Arizona does not require a license to purchase a gun, which helps white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups take immigration matters into their own hands. While most use the opportunity for good publicity and self -righteous patriotism, a few groups have used the wide-open desert as an unregulated killing zone, hunting down people who cross the border, and justifying their actions as a means of protecting the country from “ILLEGALS”.
When we met with the notorious Sheriff Arpaio, I asked him about his views of the vigilante groups who patrol the border. His response was that they are a part of his posse. Whether or not Arpaio’s comment is accurate, he did condone the deaths and terror that vigilante groups are perpetrating along the US/Mexico border.
When I walked along the migrant trails in Arizona I spotted discarded, blood-stained clothing scattered alongside bottles that appeared to have been left not long before. I wondered how many of the migrants who cross are aware of the dangers that lie ahead when they reach America. Some of them will cross in vain, only to be detained by I.C.E. agents within a couple years. An encounter with I.C.E. agents is one calculable risk paired with the possibility of a confrontation with self-appointed border vigilantes. To hear reports of Latinos being hunted down and killed by violent renegades is inexcusable.
Bumper stickers on cars pronouncing “If it’s Brown, Flush it Down” are as hurtful and as representative of ignorance as the blogs I read that labeled Oscar Grant guilty for his own death because he dressed like a “thug.” Clearly, we have an issue of people dressed in police uniforms appearing to uphold civil justice, but doing just the opposite. Too many times we turn a blind eye when a wrong is committed. I plead with people to find the peace in their heart to ask themselves this core question when conflicts arise: “Is this a fair and just act?”
Let’s keep America, America. Keep it accountable to the founding principles and creeds that helped America form. It may not be commonly viewed as such right now, but one day this story will be likened to the historical Underground Railroad, famed by Harriet Tubman.
Justice for Oscar Grant. Justice for Sean Bell. Justice for migrants who cross the US border to meet their death at the hands of unchecked vigilante groups, justice for you and justice for me. A true cry from someone who doesn’t fit the description… yet. This is an injustice that threatens us all.