On New Year’s Day, 2009, 22-year old Oscar Grant was killed by BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) police on the Fruitvale, California station platform. Grant pleaded with officers not to harm him moments before he was shot in the back while being restrained and face-down. BART police investigators are on record claiming that the victim was not handcuffed and the the officer’s revolver was holstered at the time of the shooting. Later they claim the officer thought he was using a taser. The 2-minute UK YouTube video below, which may not be suitable for minors, seems to refute those statements.
A friend told me recently that racism had evaporated in America because we elected a Black man president. I told him then that he was criminally foolish. What will he say now? That this was a tragic accident with no racist intent? Probably.
If Oscar Grant had been tasered, I would not have posted this story. If he was handcuffed only, I never would have said a word. After all, good, well-trained police are a necessity in a democratic society. But, he was shot and killed, unarmed, while being restrained by two officers. The tasers issued to BART police have handles different from their revolvers and are not carried on the same side to prevent such ‘mistakes’ from happening. Perhaps this was a killing with no racial intent perpetrated by a grossly untrained officer. But given the long history of police abuse against people of color in America, I have to consider that the dehumanizing effect of racial profiling was a factor in this killing.
Those Americans who downplay racism by focusing on the ‘liberal’ media as ‘unfair and biased’ in its portrayal of race relations in America, are invariably White with little or no experience with confrontational police. I say that once Oscar Grant’s death is no longer newsworthy, these people will return to their characterizations of non-Whites at best as politically infantile citizens, spoiled athletes or illegal aliens. At worst, they will portray us as ingrates, crooked politicians, or ‘gangstas’ and ‘baby mamas’. Never once will they look to see our shared humanity.
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