US race relations to deteriorate no matter who wins presidency: Analyst

Race relations in the US are deteriorating and the two presumptive presidential nominees are not capable of reversing the trend as their campaigns are plagued by racism, says Abayomi Azikiwe, a journalist in Detroit.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll released Saturday showed 63 percent of the 1,003 adults surveyed were pessimistic about the future of race relations, while 32 percent believed they were "generally good."

Azikiwe, an editor with the Pan- African News Wire, said Sunday that no matter which party wins the November election, race relations in the US will see no improvement given the choices that Americans face in terms of candidates.

“The [presumptive] Republican Party candidate Donald Trump has utilized racism as a method of gaining votes,” the journalist said.

Trump has time and again pledged to deport illegal immigrants from the US and keep them from coming back by building a border wall.

The New York businessman has also described as “divisive” the Black Lives Matter movement that fights for the rights of African Americans.

“We can expect no improvement in race relations if Donald Trump is elected as president or if the Republican Party maintains this majority in both Senate and the House [of Representatives],” Azikiwe said.

He said the same idea was true about presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, despite her “lip service” to solve the issue.

To get a better image of race relations under Clinton, the analyst said one should take a look at President Barack Obama’s track record on managing racial issues.

African Americans have yet to recover from the economic recession over the past years and they have to also deal with the growing problem of police brutality, he added.

The recent police shootings of two African Americans have triggered mass Black Lives Matter protests in many US cities this month.

Alton Sterling, 37, was fatally shot by police in the southeastern city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on July 5, and another African American, 32-year-old Philando Castile, was shot dead a day after by a police officer in Falcon Heights, Minnesota.

Azikiwe said former US president Bill Clinton allowed the problem to take shape by signing into law bills that “aggravated the utilization of the criminal justice system against the African American masses.”

According to various surveys, racial tensions are at the highest level since the 1992 Los Angeles riots that were started after a jury acquitted four white police officers of the use of excessive force in the videotaped arrest and beating of African American Rodney King.  

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