Race relations in US, especially between police and African-Americans, have plunged to dangerous and abominable depths with the fatal shooting of five police officers yesterday during a peaceful protest in Dallas. The entire country is in deep shock and anguish at the incident which is the deadliest assault on police since the 9/11 attacks. US Attorney General Loretta Lynch summed up the sombre mood when he said the incident left Americans “feeling a sense of helplessness, of uncertainty and of fear”.
The Dallas shooter, 25-year-old Micah Johnson, said he was angry at recent police killings of African American men and told the police “he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers”. He was avenging the police killings of two black men earlier in the week, Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota, both captured on mobile phone video in graphic detail which went viral, sparking public outrage and triggering mass protests around the US, including the march in Dallas.
The Dallas shooting is just another grisly incident in the fraught relations between police and African Americans. The intense debate raging in the country on the issue and fervent calls for unity have done little to assuage hurt feelings and bridge the deep divide. African Americans have been complaining, and rightly, of the inhuman discrimination they are suffering at the hands of white police officers, with unjustified arrests and shootings at the slightest and zero provocation, while the police are talking of the difficulties they are facing in law enforcement under constant suspicion from a section of the public.
The Dallas shootings show that American society and the government must go beyond looking at the issue from a distance, and go beyond letting the debate and pleas from leaders resolve racism because it has become too deep-rooted, pervasive and pernicious. In this case, it’s up to the law enforcement agencies to make the first move and extend a hand of friendship. Yesterday’s tragedy could have been averted if the police had acted with restraint and equanimity earlier.
The race issue will continue to haunt US because of its tortured racial history. There was abundant hope when Barack Obama took office that his presidency would help heal racial wounds, but nothing has changed despite the president’s best efforts. After the grisly video of a bloody, dying African American in Minnesota went viral, Obama begged the nation to confront the racial disparities in law enforcement. And he deplored the Dallas shooting, calling it ‘a vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement’.
Race relations in US, especially between police and African-Americans, have plunged to dangerous and abominable depths with the fatal shooting of five police officers yesterday during a peaceful protest in Dallas. The entire country is in deep shock and anguish at the incident which is the deadliest assault on police since the 9/11 attacks. US Attorney General Loretta Lynch summed up the sombre mood when he said the incident left Americans “feeling a sense of helplessness, of uncertainty and of fear”.
The Dallas shooter, 25-year-old Micah Johnson, said he was angry at recent police killings of African American men and told the police “he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers”. He was avenging the police killings of two black men earlier in the week, Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota, both captured on mobile phone video in graphic detail which went viral, sparking public outrage and triggering mass protests around the US, including the march in Dallas.
The Dallas shooting is just another grisly incident in the fraught relations between police and African Americans. The intense debate raging in the country on the issue and fervent calls for unity have done little to assuage hurt feelings and bridge the deep divide. African Americans have been complaining, and rightly, of the inhuman discrimination they are suffering at the hands of white police officers, with unjustified arrests and shootings at the slightest and zero provocation, while the police are talking of the difficulties they are facing in law enforcement under constant suspicion from a section of the public.
The Dallas shootings show that American society and the government must go beyond looking at the issue from a distance, and go beyond letting the debate and pleas from leaders resolve racism because it has become too deep-rooted, pervasive and pernicious. In this case, it’s up to the law enforcement agencies to make the first move and extend a hand of friendship. Yesterday’s tragedy could have been averted if the police had acted with restraint and equanimity earlier.
The race issue will continue to haunt US because of its tortured racial history. There was abundant hope when Barack Obama took office that his presidency would help heal racial wounds, but nothing has changed despite the president’s best efforts. After the grisly video of a bloody, dying African American in Minnesota went viral, Obama begged the nation to confront the racial disparities in law enforcement. And he deplored the Dallas shooting, calling it ‘a vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement’.
