The latest took place at a Starbucks coffee shop in Philadelphia. Two African American men were arrested for apparently sitting and waiting for a friend to arrive. It follows a long list of events, including police shootings and high-level harassment of unarmed African American people while on foot, in their cars, at pool parties or even while playing with toys. And it is part of a worrying trend of criminalising the “black body”.

Anti-racism protestors sit in at the Starbucks where two black men were arrested. EPA-EFE/Bastiaan Slabbers

In response to the incident, Starbucks has announced that it will run “unconscious bias training” for all of its US employees. Perhaps in the specific setting of Starbucks, where their staff turnover is lower than most by far, this might make a small difference to the race-awareness culture of its employees. Maybe.

But we cannot escape the fact that it is much wider societal prejudice at play here. This isn’t something that Starbucks alone can fix. When society at large, aided and abetted by the state, is festering an atmosphere of extreme and in many cases lethal suspicion of black people, just how effective can a piece of work-based anti-bias training actually be?

Of course, some will opine that it is a much needed start. For me, a better start would be for legislation to change where it would become an offence to call out the police to arrest people on the grounds of what turns out to be totally unfounded suspicions. Merely being in a public space should not be routinely assigned to guilt.

Perhaps if people knew that there could be real legal consequences to their surveillance tendencies (that are based on unfounded suspicion and shaped by personal prejudice), they might think twice before engaging law enforcement to deprive innocent people of their liberty (no matter how temporary). Businesses could set an example on this front by making it a sackable offence for employees to act in this manner.

Jim Crow at work

The consequences of inaction, however, could cause a catastrophic return to the Jim Crow era of racial segregation. If African Americans continue to feel uncomfortable – or endangered – in certain spaces they are going to find spaces where they are welcomed or feel safe.

This idea has already been suggested by the #ReplaceStarbucks trend where African American patrons are encouraged to give their business to black-owned coffee shops instead of Starbucks. Of course, supporting locally-owned black businesses is not a negative thing.

But fostering segregation even more than it already persists in the US is problematic, to say the least.

Especially when US law enforcement seems to enable an informal, covert Jim Crow to continue. Institutional discrimination and inequality between black and white America can be seen in housing, health, education and the provision of utilities. And there appears to be no consistent legal address for state committed racial injustice.
 

UK parallels

Writing as I am from the UK, some may look to the US with smug satisfaction that this could never happen in Britain. But British people should not forget the shame of the Windrush scandal that is sweeping Britain at the moment and bears eerie similarities when it comes to the way certain segments of society suffer from surveillance and a heightened level of scrutiny.

Let us remember that this episode of national injustice was in effect designed by the immigration policy of the “hostile environment”. Former Commonwealth citizens who were invited to the UK to help rebuild its economy after World War II had their legal protections removed by the 2014 Immigration Act.

The act also turned civic officers (including healthcare professionals, teachers, landlords and employers) into border control officers. With the act requiring these workers to report any suspected immigration irregularities to the Home Office, the government’s policies have even been compared to Nazi Germany.

So the civilian paranoia of what people of colour are doing is mirrored here in the UK. There is a disproportionate surveillance and reporting of the black body, where both African and Afro-Caribbean diaspora communities are marginalised and treated as outcasts in their own countries.

Both the Starbucks and the Windrush situations point to deeper issues of inequality, at a time when all people are supposed to have the same human rights. And it raises questions about how people of colour seem to have a lower status of citizenship than everyone else and what we can do to change this.
 

Ornette D Clennon, Visiting Enterprise Fellow, Manchester Metropolitan University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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‘MLK’ as he was fondly known, was a true champion of civil rights. He was unable to accept the injustices that were heaped on his fellow blacks. He was convinced that, “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." He left no stone unturned to be visible and vocal in his quest for a more just and equitable society. He emphatically stated that “our lives begin to end the day we become SILENT about things that matter”. He reminded those who were afraid to take a stand that, "in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." 

MLK was never afraid of the ‘powers’ and ‘vested’ interests that controlled the destinies of his people. His was a prophetic and selfless leadership; it also put him at great risk; for him, "the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy;” and further, "there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right." 

He did not spare those who were unable to deal with the truth: “Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."  Ultimately, “we must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience." 

 Non-violence was the strategy, which King adopted; he always acknowledged the inspirational role of Mahatma Gandhi in his life. In 1964, when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize he said, “non-violence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method, which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

There is no denying that MLK was deep in his Christian faith and in the values enshrined in the Gospel. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Faith is taking the first step even when you do not see the whole staircase."

He desired a society in which people were able to trust one another, "People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they have not communicated with each other."  
He also wished for a society, which is founded on mercy: "We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies." 

A society in which we can truly be of service to one another, "everybody can be great … because anybody can serve. You do not have to have a college degree to serve. You do not have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love." 

 Martin Luther King had a dream, which he shared with all, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. I have a dream a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character; that one day little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain and the crooked places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”
In our world today, we experience an upsurge of xenophobia and jingoism; of racism and casteism; of discrimination and divisiveness; of hate and violence. In several countries today, we have rulers who have institutionalised and mainstreamed attitudes and practices that go against cherished human values and even the most basic of civil behaviour.

MLK challenges every one of us today to have the courage to realise his dream and for what he epitomised in his lifetime.

(Fr. Cedric Prakash sj)

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