The Authoress
Posted on 12/13/2014 11:52:09 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
This post was produced in partnership with Beacon Reader as part of a crowd-funded reporting project, “After Ebola Comes Hunger.” Read more about our support for this project, and pledge your support here.
Two months ago, it felt like America had a serious identity conflation problem. Amid the Ebola hysteria, people confused Ebola-afflicted Africans with any other African. A Nigerian girl was barred from school out of fear of Ebola contagion; a stadium crowd taunted a juvenile soccer player from Africa by braying “Ebola, Ebola!” at him. Meanwhile, the country faced its own dark scourge—and here, the conflation of identity was intentional. Cops assigned to the Ferguson protests wore bracelets that said “I am Darren Wilson,” the name of the cop who killed Michael Brown.
By mid-October, Ebola cases faded in America and police stations banned the bracelets. After the Eric Garner killing failed to lead to an indictment, the protesters’ message—that cops’ lack of individual accountability was an important part of why killings occur—gained support from even right-wing TV hosts and a noted war criminal.
Throughout this ordeal, Americans have been quick to identify how they must look to outsiders. An article on what the coverage of the police violence protests would look like if the country weren’t our own nearly went viral; an Ebola bit by a South African comedian on the Daily Show did. As I departed for Africa, I wondered if Ferguson was our Ebola—a moment when people far away saw every American as afflicted with violence, in rather the same way we misidentified all Africans with Ebola infection for a time. So I asked.
I sought a range of opinions from contacts I made while living in Ghana and teaching an international graduate school class in Bangladesh, which included students from five African nations. This was not a scientific survey, and these responses aren’t necessarily representative of any particular country or place in Africa. But they certainly deliver a different perspective on how our country is perceived from the outside.
Of the five people I interviewed, everyone had heard of Michael Brown and the Ferguson protests, and most mentioned Eric Garner, too. The basic story of American police violence has spread into media outlets worldwide.
The collective mood is glum. “It’s absurd that [the violence] has been occurring consistently over the years,” says Michael Jonga, a public health professional from Uganda. “I think Martin Luther King’s dream should have been fulfilled by now,” adds Patrick MacAidoo, a former co-worker of mine from Ghana, who calls the situation “very sad.” Others, like Edgar Kagumba from Uganda, call it “very disturbing.”
Overall, their impression of the violence is similar to the viewpoint of many Americans. “I am not impressed with the way the state administrators handled the whole situation. They seem to protect their own,” Jonga says. Hussein Dossajee, a doctor from Kenya, agrees. “The truth will probably never be told until much later…. [But] why six shots were fired is something that needs to be explained.”
My respondents seemed to understand the chronic nature of the violence. “This is already a pretty racially charged society and it is bound to flare up,” Dossajee says, in a comment that sounds like this satire but is entirely sincere. Jonga admits to holding a dim view of America in general: “My opinion has always been that American people have lots of double standards and sometimes act selfishly to serve their interests.”
Kagumba is openly fearful. “I think America is increasingly becoming unsafe for blacks, and hope that society doesn’t degenerate into an apartheid South Africa of sorts!”
Ghanaians are more willing to give the benefit of the doubt—perhaps a reflection of their own uncommonly peaceful national history. MacAidoo thinks that, police bracelets notwithstanding, we are mostly not Darren Wilson. “I do not believe this is a clear case of a general racism…. This has to do with wrong cultural orientation against the black people by some selected white policemen in the police department.”
I ask Emmanuel Darkwa, a public health professional from Accra, Ghana, if the news of white policemen killing black men has damaged his opinion of white people in general. He says, “[At] first yes. But … I think through the issues before making any conclusions.” He adds that people he knows don’t view all Americans as alike: “The feeling is that some states are very fond of racial discrimination and abuse whiles others are perceived to be a nice place to go to. That’s what people back home think of.”
Jonga, for all his negative feelings about America generally, has a surprisingly progressive take on solving police violence in America. “The cops who kill people are not monsters, but people who are struggling with too much, and they need … a holistic psychiatric intervention,” he says, sounding like America’s violence interrupters. And he adds that police owe their victims the same consideration: “I think the police should protect the citizens even when they are acting in unreasonable manners … since the victims would be persons who need psychiatric help and not bullets to their demise.”
The irony of the situation was not lost upon my Ugandan and Ghanaian friends. “I feel very disappointed in the judicial and executive systems of America. I thought this first world country knew better and must show the way,” MacAidoo says.
“America is pre-occupied with setting standards for China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Africa; for the world,” Kagumba adds. “Standards that are too high to attain, even for itself…. When America fails to practice what it preaches, it loses its moral authority. It loses its relevance on the global stage.”
The Authoress
All leftists are hideous. That ugly commie chick has never owned or used a toothbrush.
There are these new things called “makeup” and “hair shampoo” as well. I’m nearly 55 and have no wrinkles, how does a twenty-something have so many?
Why you're just a youngster! Or so it seems from the viewpoint of this doddering old man. :)
Thanks for the spot-on reply about the "authorette" windbag.
Does TRUTH even matter anymore??
Even a little teeency weeeeency bit??
Guess not.
Idi Amin: “I don’t like people. Too salty.”
You see, in Ghana, if you try assault a cop and try to take his gun, he laughs and buys you a cup of coffee.
Indeed.
Uh, wouldn’t he normally be carrying an FN or AK-47? He’d send you to hell for looking at him cockeyed.
For an opinion - whether held by a person, or a group - to matter, someone has to give a s#|+...and I don’t.
America is such an evil, evil place. I can’t for the life of me figure out why every person on the planet wants to move here. I guess they’re all just ignorant morons.
Until we allow black thugs to punch us in the face, take our gun and shoot us with it we'll never fully achieve Dr King's dream.
Makes perfect sense to a moonbat.
Five thousand years of history and zero progress.
Yes, because when I want solutions to the world’s problems, I always look to Africa for the answers. (snicker)
Isn’t it amazing you can always tell a liberal no matter their color by their expressions?
Garbage in, garbage out.
Here’s a clue, people of Africa:
All you hear from journalists about America is bad news, not good - and they even make up most of the bad news.Why, you may ask, would they - how could they - do that? Simply because bad news sells newspapers - and because all major journalists are in cahoots. Adam Smith explains:
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary. - Adam Smith, Wealth of NationsFor the past century and a half, all major journalists have been members of the Associated Press, and for all those years “the wire” has functioned as a virtual meeting of all journalists about what the news is.Journalists favor bad news, because bad news sells. And because reporting bad things about important people makes the reporter seem important. The worst news is if powerful people do bad things. So a story about a policeman killing an unarmed person is “a great story” to journalists. Therefore any incident which seems similar to that template is always reported as if that is exactly what occurred. Always.
The other thing to understand is that half or more of American politicians go along with journalists and get along with journalists. They do so very successfully. And one of them is currently president of the United States.
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