Black deaths raise uncomfortable questions in US election year

Keith Lamar Scott is a name that will hardly ring a bell among Indians currently. But it is a name that is dominating headlines across the US media even more than Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as the presidential candidates prepare for their first big public face-off in New York on Monday night.

Scott, 43, was a black American shot dead by by a white police officer Bretley Vincent in the neighbourhood of Charlotte in North Carolina. The police claim they were on the lookout for a suspect with a pending warrant on September 20 when they saw Scott "armed" in an SUV and perceived him as a threat to personnel on the ground, forcing officer Vincent to shoot him four times.

This theory is not accepted by the family of the dead, who believe that the bodycam and dashcam videos released so far neither prove that Scott had a gun nor that his objective was to shoot the police.

The videos do show the police shouting "drop the gun", even as Scott first moves back without showing any obvious sign of aggression. Scott's wife can be heard in the background saying "he does not have a gun". 

The family claims his wife told the police that Scott was disabled with a brain injury, but the uniformed officers paid no heed.

The latest killing of a black man under questionable circumstances has led to a slew of protests in Charlotte, largely peaceful, except for a demonstration on Wednesday night that got ugly as a civilian shot at and injured a protester. The family of Scott appealed for peaceful demonstrations while appreciating the public outrage and support. 

Scott's is a name added to an already disturbing list of black Afro-Americans killed in police encounters in the last two years since a white policeman shot dead 18-year-old black teenage Michael Brown in August of 2014.

Brown's death led to massive protests, unrest and riots in Ferguson, the suburb of St Louis in Missouri. 

There have been other deaths. Black CD seller and father of five Alton Sterling, 37, was killed by white Baton Rouge policemen on July 5 this year outside a convenience store. Philando Castile was shot dead in Minnesota as his girlfriend live streamed his last few moments on Facebook. Terence Crutcher, 40, was shot dead in Tulsa, Oklahama, on September 16, just four days before Scott's death, after his SUV got stalled in the middle of the road.

Disturbing footage released of Crutcher's last moments showed him following police instructions and walking to his car before a man in blue uniform shot him dead. 

A database compilation by The Guardian reports that 793 people have been killed by the police in the US so far, of which 194 were blacks. The report also mentions that 388 people in the list of fatalities are whites.

But the outrage over the killings of black people both armed and unarmed in several cases has once again exposed the deep fault lines in American society in a year when election tempers are running high and polarising rhetoric adds to the fragile environment. 

In a conversation on the streets of Waikiki in gorgeous Hawaii - a cultural melting pot - a former world champion Afro-American athlete said: "Things churn at an extremely slow pace. Even after the Declaration of Independence, it took several centuries before blacks were given their rights in the world's oldest democracy. Today our nation boasts of a black President. But when (Barack) Obama won the presidency, it also in a way pealed the wounds off many whites who do not like the changed America."

American demographics is transformed today. It is no more as white as it used to be. Latinos, Hispanics, Afro-Americans, Asians, immigrants have mingled into the society that looks pluralistic and calm on the surface, but faces turmoil within.

Obama's rise from an outsider to the top job of commander-in-chief in 2008 broke the old nativist narrative but racism remains an issue. Blue-collared whites today feel they do not enjoy the economic advantages they had as 30-year-olds, a feeling that Donald Trump has tried cashing in on his campaign.

But even Trump, whose campaign has been based on polarisation, realises that the black vote share in America is crucial to any election. 

According to Pew Research, white voters' percentage decreased from 78 per cent in 2000 to 69 per cent in 2016, while black eligible voters' percentage in this period stayed constant at 12 per cent. Hispanics grew by 5 per cent in the last 16 years while Asians grew from 2 per cent to 4 per cent. 

At a rally in Virginia on Saturday, Republican presidential candidate Trump said: "African Americans have given so much to our nation, and sacrificed so much for this nation." He vowed to "fight to make sure every single African American in this country is fully included in the American dream".

This even as he got wrong the name of a newly inaugurated National Museum of African American History and Culture. President Obama, former US President George W Bush and many prominent civil rights activists and black heroes attended the grand opening ceremony of the museum on Saturday, amid reports of black killings across media stations. 

Scott's death has raised uncomfortable questions. Questions of policing policy in a country where blacks have risen to higher levels among the forces. Could several deaths have been avoided?

Do the police escalate instead of de-escalate tension when it is a black suspect in question? Several media reports have emerged of breakdown in relations between black society and cops, so much so that even a black police officer in uniform is hated by his own. 

A day after Castile's death was live streamed on social media, Micah Johnson, a military veteran, killed five white police officers and injured nine at a Black Lives Matter rally in Dallas with his assault rifle and pistol.

It was not the only one of its kind incident. Vincent Hill, a black law enforcement officer commenting on Scott's death on Fox News, said: "You cannot take a 30-second video and call it racial. It diminishes police work across the country." 

The media too has been under scrutiny for the difference in approach when it comes to black and white suspects killed or facing the law in the US.

Scott's brother-in-law, responding to certain media queries about how Keith was as a father, or as a human being, reminded that these were questions related to "character".

"Of course, he was a wonderful person. Of course, he was loved dearly. But we shouldn't have to humanise him for him to be treated fairly. He was an American citizen, and deserved better," he stressed. 

There is not an absence of law, but the struggle remains with a legacy of discrimination and mistrust. The wheels of justice have moved in some cases where officers have been indicted for excessive use of force.

But as America elects a new president in a few weeks, and it's first black President waves goodbye to the Oval Office, schisms will need addressing with sensitivity and pluralism, and inclusivity will need to be reclaimed by a superpower that boasts of its democratic principles and values. 

As the blue Pacific Ocean merged with the blue skies, and chatter of men, women from diverse backgrounds and countries sounded a lilting tune in the breezy night, the former black athlete told this journalist in Honolulu: "Look, I am not going to leave this country. I may have a slim chance here, but at least I have a chance."

(The writer is currently in the US state of Hawaii to attend a security symposium at DKI APCSS.)

Also read: Awkward moment in Trump's rally when Indian-American supporter gets kicked out