The shooting death of unarmed black man Ahmaud Arbery in February by two white men in the US state of Georgia “shows clearly that America is still a very racist society,” an African American journalist in Detroit says.
“This is a pattern that's been going on for many years in the United States,” said Abayomi Azikiwe, editor at the Pan-African News Wire.
“Even amid a pandemic, which is supposed to bring people together, but obviously, this type of violence, this type of racism has no end under the existing system,” Azikiwe said in a phone interview with Press TV on Tuesday.
“Only when this system is changed to eliminate racism and injustice, would these types of crimes be eliminated completely,” he added.
The February 23, the killing of 25-year-old Arbery in the small coastal town of Brunswick, Georgia, was captured on a video that has since gone viral on social media.
The shooting and video sparked outrage across the US, with civil rights activists saying it marks yet another example of white perpetrators attacking an innocent black man.
Last week, Georgia investigators arrested a white former police officer, Gregory McMichael, 64, and his son Travis, 34, on charges of murdering Arbery.
Critics have questioned why it took local law enforcement more than two months to arrest the suspects, prompting Georgia’s state attorney general to vow to investigate the delay.
The Mayor Atlanta, Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms, said Sunday that “this was a lynching of an African-American man.”