Divisive is politics in the United States politicians are accused of fanning the flames of polarization is the country reels from many problems in an Election Year corona virus has had its toll on the economy now the death of black american floyd respond protests in dozens of cities so can america overcome its divisions this is inside school. Hello welcome to the program im convinced now running battles with the police 5 losing and protest is arrested riots of the death of george floyd have spread across dozens of u. S. Cities and close to president Donald Trumps doorstep as well at the white house governors have imposed curfews and dispatched National Guards the floyd case has reignited rage over the deaths of black americans at the hands of police and racial inequality its also opened a Divisive Political debates between democrats and republicans President Donald Trump has promised to put an end to what he calls mob violence trump says healing is need is what hes accused of doing the opposite igniting tension so hendrik reports from the city of minneapolis where it will stop it. This is what a curfew was supposed to look like few people on the street few cars in relative quiet but it was a far cry from that just hours ago. Police and demonstrators faced off in an area they have been trading control of a night ago the police controlled an intersection behind me and then demonstrators took it over in the day well in the evening the police came back in force marching toward the protesters shooting pellets and firing tear gas it all took about 15 minutes to disperse the crowd we spoke to some of the protesters and this is what they had to say that you dont date drawing gas and so lets not go. As a ripple it may have got picked up in the mass. Media just is really you know just the city would not rest until we get a just a no justice no peace does that mean we out one officer has been arrested and charged with murder but there were 4 officers involved in the arrest of george floyd that ended in his death now the crowd says they want to stay out here in the streets of minneapolis despite the curfew despite the Police Presence until all 4 of those officers are arrested. Well President Donald Trump has also called on governments to be tougher with protest as hes threatened to intervene with the military his rival joe biden struck a different tone the Presumptive Democratic president ial nominee has called protests against Police Brutality right and necessary but an end to violence the act of protesting should never be allowed to overshadow the reason we protest he said should not drive people away from the just cause that protest is meant to advance. To bring and joining also from doha Maurice Jackson an associate professor in the History Department and africanamerican studies at Georgetown University from Brooklyn Kevin powell author and civil rights activists and from new jersey so hot as he is professor of law and childs of the social justice scholar at Rutgers University a warm welcome to you will thanks for joining us here on inside story id like to begin with you if i can maurice people obviously angry were seeing it on the streets as you say its also opening up opening up a Divisive Political debate how divided is america not just over the issue of racial inequality but also about how to tackle it well its no different today than it was yesterday. The country is divided for many reasons africanamericans are suffering miserably Racial Disparities are greater than theyve ever been massively the average weight of Family Income is 300 times of what a black or well then you have the bad effects be because of coronaviruses weapon americans suffer. Greatly in mass it is. Most 80 percent of the of the of the case of black less than 50 percent of the population is so everywhere you look you have these are saying things and people are going where you know and then you have these cases you know everywhere. Ive known at least the modern ones are always started by white people in one case he was James Earl Ray in 1968. And the problem is that africanamericans are responding to these things and sometimes they do response has to be understood and has been taken into consideration for example in 1960 they were asked in washington d. C. 50 years later the city is rebuilt but most of the black people in the in the affected areas have been pushed out so where its going to have meanings of many different ways but the anger is always there ok i want to cut you off against a hot what role does politics play and is politics playing now in the divisions that were seeing play out today. Well the polarization of the country is certainly making it in some ways a Silver Lining of waking up many liberal whites who focus too much on what we call de jury discrimination as opposed to defacto discrimination meaning that just because the law may say that its illegal to discriminate based on race doesnt mean that in fact there are discriminatory practices and policies and what trouble is doing in a very paradoxical way is he is showing the naked underbelly of systemic racism by being a white supremacist or white nativist at best and in terms of who he socializes with or who he in incorporate into his regime such as steve mann and who may not be there formally but he i think he still influencing him behind the scenes Stephen Miller many xenophobic and islam phobic an anti black advisers that are advising him in ways that continue these disproportionate impacts on africanamericans and latino communities at muslim communities so what you see now with this militarization of the police the growth of the police state is a very stark contrast between how his regime and i call him a regime because i think trump is an authoritarian the only reason he isnt able to implement the way tearing is a writ large is because of our institutions and our constitution but what hes done is look at the way that hes responded to the way protesters that dont want to have the state who are challenging the stand home orders were challenging the quarantine for purposes of Public Safety he is supporting them hes saying yes this is their right and in fact hes even passing policies in terms of telling governors you should open up the economy whereas hes telling the police and the National Guard and telling the protesters that hes going to start shooting and when it is africanamerican protesters are latino protesters and theyre white allies that are openly challenging anti black racism so the pope the. Polarization is bringing to bear and bringing to light the stark inequalities that are based on race in the us and i hope that this is going to wake up the liberal whites who will then realize that just because legally its against the law to discriminate based on race factually it continues at a deeply entrenched level ok kevin id like to turn to you to unpack a little bit more donald trump of the one hand has said what happened to george floyd ors or fall it was a grave tragedy on the other hand he also said as i mentioned there when the looting starts the shooting starts his ward protesters about approaching the white house warning them a vicious dogs and ominous weapons do you think donald trump exacerbates polarization in the u. S. Well you know as a couple things and i want to make it clear i mean a civil and human rights activist because what were talking about are the fundamental human rights of people in america rather if its because of race religion gender gender identity class background ability disability the problem is that we are not the democracy that we claim to be and weve never been a democracy be claimed to be the country was founded on slavery in the genocide of native americans was founded on the oppression of women women being invisible in every way and if you were a poor person including poor white people you had no rights either and so only because of things like the Civil Rights Movement to them this movement and weve seen progress in this country we need to be very clear about that donald trump is actually not the problem the problem is bigger than him its the system systemic oppression and marginalization of different types of people of course history including black people like myself that people are reacting to and yes liberal and progressive white folks even moderate white folks so it is above the realizing with the it with the election and ascendancy of donald trump that they dont even matter you know but the reality is donald trump is george w. Bush donald trump was Ronald Reagan donald trump Andrew Jackson Andrew Johnson if we have a working knowledge of American History hes actually not new at all and so what we see happening is americans across the board reacting to all the in equities that have been just put on steroids since he got elected but that that black people and other marginalized groups knew were there all along and i believe that what we see happening in the streets of america why black red yellow and brown people of all different identities younger people older people saying that weve had enough of this enough of people just being killed like this when donald trump says things like if you do you know were going to shoot thats going back to 1968 and the same thing was said about one order in a need to control it without looking at systemic problems which is this is a massive gap as as mr aris just mentioned a moment ago between the haves and the have nots and its not just black people who have not this across the board. This is a small percentage including Donald Trumps group that are being controlling everything and it is blatant about their disrespect for the humanity in the civil rights of all americans not just work people theres been a lot youll be aware theres been a lot of conflicting discussion about who is turning these protests violent theres been accusations from everywhere that its the left wing radicals its the right wing nationalists foreign activists maurice all Political Parties assigning blame to advance their own agendas in this crisis. Well i think they are lets look back you know theres always christine for this one rice a racetrack was burned in germany this. Was his 1st. Massive step. To bring in a passes and you do have these forces of what i can see that have been you know. In a minute so they can have many names of big eagle billington of these and you have a place like that were outsiders have come in and thats one thing thats one element you always hear that youve always had provocative was coming and i live in washington d. C. Im here with 7 about been a demonstration where you not have people who track do this in many cases they are they have been quite outside and things like that now the language coming from as weve been said the language just coming from mr trump is based in the language of festus it has been the language of takeover its been a language of blaming the victim it has been the language of we will come out in shoot and what happens is that in many cases the mayors of these cities want to strike they want to for example in 1068. 00 in washington d. C. The mayor of washington who had been chosen by johnson refused to put. Bullets in the guns he said we will only use weapons he said my police will not shoot anyone and that has to be just a bit of. What mr trump is doing by not talking about nationalizing. He wants to talk to do this just happened before in the United States right in washington d. C. When Army Veterans came in 1932 to demand a wage and something called the bonus money so this is where he said John Macarthur and i is now another who got the training in military training on on attacking poor in this case white turning so so the language is now i must say that mr biden when i have seen his used. Language. Hes calling for restraint and hes calling for the ended about and that is what a. Seasoned politician whatever his motives are here saying in part the right things now ok. They were told were talking there about the people in power the people who have prominence but all this structural slow ols in the american political system which have created the situation we have today. Well absolutely i think the 1st thing we need to focus on is the culture of the police and if you look at Police Departments such as in camden new jersey that after years decades of repression and that was highly racialized they have been completely retrained to focus on deescalation to focus on the use of force only when absolutely necessary which would be very rarely any fact as a result they are their sheriff or their chief of police joining the protesters in camden we also see out a similar phenomena and in the flint township where the sheriff joined the protesters so there are deep cultural racist structures that cause the Police Including africanamerican policemen and Hispanic Police and arab leagues men where they have a culture of the blue rape the blue is stronger than anything else and then they start being acculturated to seeing their people as subjects as people to rule and to control rather than a skimpy triacs or ask people to serve as as equal citizens so there are deep structural flaws in how the police are trained and then there is also the problem of not including in our Public Education system many of the historical facts that my colleagues have discussed today and understanding that this is a settler colonial nation and we talk about slavery as if its something thats been answered we dont want to acknowledge in our School System the legacy of slavery in terms of very severe housing segregation along the race that is also in our class it is no coincidence that a disproportionate number of africanamerican or latino students attend underfunded schools that are struggling because of the lack of resources and then it create it continues this vicious cycle of poverty that intersects where race and you can go on and on in terms of employment in terms of. Social mobility and these are all structures that again as i point to maybe legally they are not. Acceptable but factually thats the way that our society is is functioning and so i think what we need to do is we need to start focusing on reforming institutions and reforming structures at the local level at the state level and certainly at the federal level but this is so baked into the fabric of our society its the invisible that we need to make visible that many people dont know where to start so i would you suggest that we start not focusing so much on the law because i think the law is failed this country and focusing more on cultural changes and having more conversations that openly talk about race and talk about class and talk about gender in ways that dont blame whites but make whites understand that they have privileges that they have to acknowledge and then theres a responsibility for them to work with africanamerican and muslim unlucky now and not as you would teach you communities and other and women and other subordinated communities that we must Work Together to bring our society to match the aspirations that were taught in school kevin i can see you nodding your head there is something you want to add to that. Well you know the professor just said it so brilliantly and im actually from new jersey original live in new york city about jersey city and i went to rockers the only reason i was able to go to record was because of what she just talked about so brilliantly so eloquently that the people of the Civil Rights Movement made change happen and that they took to the streets just like people are taking to the streets today with hashtag me to what has tanked black lives matter and the work that they did helped to effect civil rights legislation that made it possible for people like me literally came from massive poverty single mother welfare government assistance across the board im a 1st Generation College student because the laws had the progress had to be enacted but it would not happen if people did not use their voices thats the only way any society ever changed s s the harsh reality of it and i think what people are saying today what were seeing is a number of Police Brutality enough the racial profiling enough of islamophobia antisemitism homophobia transfer will be enough of hatred of women enough of rape culture enough of able ism enough of marginalizing other in people where we claim to be you know this wonderful melting pot of people you cannot hate your people and claim to be a democracy thats not it doesnt go together and so thats what were seeing there and shes actually right about structural changes and she was talking about the Police Forces i know that the Police Forces were modeled after the slave patrols that existed during slavery to discipline and monitor and brutalized people who were slaves who actually or wanted to score tried to skate from slavery you know so we understand that all of this is rooted in the founding of america and america was founded on it became an economic power because of slavery and so when you see a Police Officer with his neck is his and his name on the neck of a black man in minnesota and 2020 that is no different that what we have seen a 100 years ago 200 years ago 300 years ago in this land that we call america its the same exact maryse trumps hits to black america is often look at the economy know how its improving. Lives but as you said we are in the middle of a pandemic economic inequality has been highlighted. In effect supercharged by the coronavirus pandemic what role does economic inequality have in the anger that were seeing today thank you you know just this is mr george made a plea to him just please. The young people are mistreated they are making a plea for him. The fact is that America Today in 2020 is more segregated than it was when i was a kid in that and thats a sims growing up in chemistry going to stuff i grew up in the projects and and in on a stand there too but now is worse in the city i live in washington d. C. The met companies are not in fact business so its worse economic inequality africanamericans in good times double in number of unemployment now out of the 40000000 economically they are disproportionately unemployable Health Insurance the lack of it the lifespan if you look at any shot any show we just did a study just we found the delight span of africanamerican men is about 50 years less than whites a black man who finishes a college who makes less than a black man and woman who finished college is making less than a white person who goes to high school economically. In part of it has do structurally if we would just throw. New jersey economic work back to things and one is is by inherited wealth africanamericans have no inherent in will make becoming a world with nothing where many white families do come in with that so you have all of those doing press the systematic basss they do exist then you have a lack of education and Education Programs at a time when they are being cut theyre being cut in high school you have very little programs apprenticeship programs are necessary where you can get job training people and then housing every black person is paying well over 3540 percent want you Just Economics by the amount you pay and i was in no want to pay more than a through and was to give over 30 is called bird 3 a burden with 56 percent of the income and then to get jobs where they are just they have to take the bus you go to suburbs which to me if they have there and then a minimum wage people dont fight. To have. The problem minimum wage in minutes they still so burden upon burden upon burden economically and so the summons coming in jenin someone is when kids want to get summer jobs now they cant do it because the Community Barriers oh these things that add up and they make for particularly we are of course in an election. Does anything change structurally in terms of the driving forces that got us to this point depending on who wins the election. Well the elections are important in the short term but not necessarily in the long term because of what my colleagues have said that these are these are things that have been going on for decades and centuries but what i want to point out is right now the game is that who can get the most people out to vote because many of the studies have shown particularly after the 2016 or 2018 upset or 2016 upset when many people assume that clinton is going to win the main reason that a politician or a candidate doesnt win is because their team their party doesnt show up to vote so what trump is doing is hes going to get more racist hes going to get more sexist hes going to get more of farther to the right in order to mobilize his base and to anger them to go out to the polls and so what the democrats have to do is they have to respond with that hate with love and progressive values and to go and mobilize their base to go to the polls to save this country to save the soul of this country for moving back 50 to 100 years especially on Race Relations and so the game is who can mobilize their base the most and right now trouble is trying to distract the population from the other failures that mini failures that he has demonstrated in dealing with a Global Pandemic we have over 100000. 00 deaths now in the United States and the world is looking at us as if were a developing country when they were the wealthiest well the reason we we fail is because we may be wealthy but the wealth is so highly concentrated among a very small percentage of population most of whom are also white and male so right now this Election Year matters because its all about how can you position whats happening how can you have a whats happening now to change whos going to be in the presidency but thats not thats a very important prerequisite but i think what we need to focus on in the long term is how can we use these opportunities as learning opportunities and how can we demonstrate to immigrants for example who. I think well i came here for the American Dream im an immigrant im from egypt i work a lot with muslims arabs and south asians and they fall under the model minority track where oh if you work hard in america to meritocracy and youll succeed and what they need to understand is africanamericans have been here for multiple generations and yet we see this severe wealth disparity which creates severe inequality and opportunity disparity as my colleague just stated and we have to ask ourselves why why i can immigrants from a foreign country coming within one to 3 generations move up to the upper middle class whereas you have a large swath of africanamericans who have been here for generations and theyre still stuck in this vicious cycle of poverty theyre thrown into the mass incarceration system into jails which are effectively modern day slavery and yet these immigrants are socially mobile a lot of it has to do with race a lot of it has to do with skin color and buno type in the way that we value and devalue people based on their racial identity and muslims will learn this largely after 911 many arab americans and Muslim Americans thought that they were why the fore i love it and then after 911. 00 they just got a taste a small taste of what it was like to be black in america and they realize this country is not a meritocracy and no there is racism so the challenge for us right now both before but definitely after the election is to make all of these different communities understand the root causes of oppression are the same even if the manifestations and the severity and degree are different and this is something that i work on the center for security race right at rutgers and i think all of us need to keep doing that in our respective communities lie apologies we have to leave it there for time but we appreciate your time there is kevin powell and maurice texas thank you and thank you too for watching who can see the program again any time by visiting our web site al jazeera dot com and for further discussion go to our Facebook Page thats facebook dot com ford slash a. J. Inside story you can also join the conversation on twitter handle is at a james at story like a mystery directly at cannes an elf from it comes an l. Of the whole take care of myself. Teach it strong man and he is ruling within a fire and faced in the silence from his allies is deafening the us was perfectly happy to trade off the march for sea for security while western media is turning a blind eye when even the citizens have for inventing to his repression executions torture or censorship is not acceptable and you wont hear such strong words from lets say berlin or paris or london and in cairo on aljazeera more than 7 decades ago a country was split into really big but did anything and the time. To do you think all it took was a pan a map and a collapsing empire and when the british had to draw a line they pulled it in 67200 have been to india before aljazeera examines the violent of india and pakistan and docks what the future holds for these new korean neighbors politicians borders of blood. Hello im daryn jordan with a quick update on the on rest in the United States has been a 6th day of protests against Police Brutality across the country it all started in Minneapolis Police people rather have gathered again to denounce the death of george floyd he was killed by a white Police Officer who knelt on his neck for almost 9 minutes last monday john hendren has more you can see here people have created a circle of flowers at this site where george filleted died over there under the red stoplight. That is where he lay in
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.