Randy Short: Racism in US systemic, structural

Press TV has interviewed Randy Short, a human rights activist in Tennessee, to discuss a video showing an American police officer shooting at a moving car transporting six passengers, all African American.

The following is a rough transcription.

Press TV: Mr. Short, your thoughts when you see such a thing.

Short: This happens all the time. There was a case in the same year where police shot a 61-year-old black woman, shot about 100 times in a car. There was a case in Florida shot 200 times in a car and another case in Miami shot 115 times in a car, yet the case in Ohio 137 times in the car. Black lives don’t matter.

Press TV: Why is there such a disproportion of news regarding police violence against blacks as opposed to whites?

Short: Because again, we have a system of white supremacy and racism. I have said this and people can disagree. There is an existential hatred of African Americans in the United States and this is shared by large numbers of people in the country; very similar to what Nazis felt for Jews in Nazi Germany, or what was felt for blacks in apartheid South Africa. This is very much a part of the American history, as well as groups like the Fraternal Order of Police that celebrated its 100th anniversary on May 14.

You have to understand that … there was no such thing as murdering black people in this country until 51 years ago and of course there has been settlement of the English and others for at least 400 years. So most of the history in this country it was OK to kill black people; to rape black women. I only know of one case of a white man being convicted in 400 years of raping black women. So we are not seen as equals, we are not treated as equals and this is a norm, and it doesn’t matter if they put in a puppet or a black face in a high place. That doesn’t change the structural, systemic racism in this society.

Press TV: We have seen President Obama take the podium and speak strongly about this, but after protests to multiple examples of this kind of violence taking place, why haven’t we seen a major reform being initiated?

Short: First and foremost, Obama is not an African American; he was put in power by wealthy Anglos and wealthy Zionists. We are not in his interests although black votes certainly got him into office. You have to understand that Obama, like all the other political people in the country, in particular the Democrats, are aligned with the police unions. So there is not a real issue about reforming things, in fact the United States government violates its own signed treaty with the UN on genocide. I mean every 60 minutes, 60 black babies are aborted. Abortion, mass incarceration, and police as death squads on state or municipal pay seems to be the way they want to relate to a group that numbers 50, 60, maybe 70 million people.

So this is a history; we are a oppressed minority group like the Kurds in Turkey, or another given example of perhaps Catholics in northern Ireland. This is the real America. Obama was put in place to try to mask the extreme racism in the society that is also manifested in Islamophobia, the wars without end. The oppression of people in Latin America, Africa, and Asia; the Anglo Americans are very racist people, their empire started out with piracy and they are still brutal pirates; they are modern but they are not civilized. They use the modernity to oppress and we happen to be one of the groups that super-exploited for great profits. And you have to use violence and repression to super-exploit people.

MTM/HSN

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