By Aroun Rashid Deen
Black African leaders in the United States are speaking out on the death in police custody of African American, George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Monday, May 25, 2020. There have been condemnations and calls for action throughout the African community against police brutality, particularly toward black men. Floyd’s death triggered protests nationwide.
Ugandan born human rights activist, Arao Ameny said institutional and systemic racism in the United States targeted all blacks regardless of their background. Ameny called on African immigrants in the United States to stand up and let their voices be heard. “As Black immigrants, we should be aware that we are not special in the eyes of rogue law enforcement”, he said.
The Maryland resident said lawless and racist police don’t check for passports or accents or ask how many languages and dialects one speaks. “They see black skin, claim they feel threatened and just shoot,” he said.
Ameny recalled the murders by police of some Black African immigrants in the United States including a former friend of hers, Alfred Olango who also was from Uganda and lived in California when El Cajon police shot and killed him. The Ugandan immigrant’s family had called police because he was acting erratically and needed medical attention. One of the officers who responded shot him multiple times on September 27, 2016. The 38-year old Olango died in hospital a day later.
Hadja Ramatu Ahmed heads the New York City-based Africa Life Center, an organization that helps Africans in the United States to access essential services such as housing and health care. He said seeing George Floyd cuffed, being pinned to the ground with the officer’s knee on his neck and struggling to breathe, was disturbing to watch. “That police must have heard Floyd taking his last breaths while he had his knee on his neck. He intentionally killed George Floyd. He ignored his pleas, waited for him to die before he took his knee off his neck”, Hadja said. She said she felt paralyzed when she heard the dying Floyd calling on his mother for help. “It makes a mother think of her son, helplessly dying. That moment sent a disturbing and troubling feeling to all mothers,” she said.
The Ghanaian American Hadja said there had always been a cordial relationship between African American leaders and their African immigrant counterparts. She recalled that African Americans including the Rev. Al Sharpton stood by the African community after the killings by police of African immigrants including Amadou Diallo and Ousmane Zongo in New York, Mubarak Soulemane in Connecticut and Olango in California. Hadja Ramatu Ahmed said there was a need for that relationship to be strengthened further.
Mubarak Soulemane was of Ghanaian parentage. At 19 years old he was shot and killed on January 15, 2020. Police alleged he stole a car and fled from them at high speed. The New Jersey state trooper who shot him claimed he saw Soulemane with a knife after stopping the car. Family and friends said Soulemane was suffering from schizophrenia.
Hadja Ramatu Ahmed said it’s about time that Black leadership everywhere from Africa to the Caribbean acknowledged that the struggle of African Americans against racism was their struggle, too, and their responsibility as well. “Black leadership everywhere must now send a clear and sustained message that this is unacceptable and will not be tolerated anymore.”
Bakary Tandia who is a co/founder of the Abolition Institute of Human Rights, an organization that focuses on combating modern-day slavery and human trafficking also said that there had been a long-standing relationship between the leadership of African Americans and the African continent. Mr. Tandia resides in New York City. He is from Mauritania.
He said African American civil rights leaders have a history of involvement in Africa’s struggles against colonialism and neocolonialism and exploitation and that they continue to stand for the African continent. Moreover, he said, in the United States, some of them have played mentorship and advisory roles for their African counterparts. “There is almost no distinction between the two communities.” In the same vein, there is, he said, a common thread that links the hatred and discrimination of black people everywhere “because the root causes are the same,” he said. Tandia said the inhumane actions by police in the US have far-reaching effects beyond the United States.
Ghanaian immigrant, Mohammed Mardah, chairman of the African Advisory Council in New York, urged Africans throughout the United States who would be protesting to do so peacefully and not engage in violence or any other act of lawlessness. He said Africans could not sit back in complacency in the face of police brutality against African Americans throughout the United States. Mardah also mentioned the killings by the police of Amadou Diallo in February 1999 and Ousmane Zongo in 2003 among others. “When it comes to Blacks, racist police officers in America first see skin color and then assume guilt, even before they get to know the suspect – be they African Americans, Africans, or others.
The 23-year-old Diallo was a Guinean immigrant. He was shot 41 times by four NYPD police officers. One of the officers claimed he mistook him for a rape suspect a year earlier. Thirty-seven-year-old Ousmane Zongo was from Burkina Faso. He too was killed by NYPD officer during a warehouse raid.
African immigrants were among hundreds who turned out at a peaceful protest in Franklin Township in New Jersey over the weekend. Abdul Hardy Gabisi, the Secretary-General of the Sierra Leone Community of New Jersey, an umbrella organization of civil groups and nonprofit organizations, was among the protesters.
Abdul Hardy Gabisi said the investigation that took place after Floyd’s death was “for the most part justice denied.” Gabisi described Floyd's death as very troubling saying: “With all this colossal evidence that shows gross police unprofessionalism and excessive force, it is time for real justice to be served.”
Gabisi is also the Secretary of Da’Awatul Islamia, the biggest Black African Muslim Jamaat in North America. He said it’s ironic that the United States, known globally for championing human rights and equality, now finds itself so entangled in the web of racism and police brutality of members of particularly the African American community.
He said the United States still carries the mantle of championing democracy and showing empathy to humanity all over the world. “This should be upheld much so to its citizenry," he said. "Otherwise, its leadership in the world will become highly questionable.”
The Minnesota Attorney, Keith Ellison has charged all four former police officers involved in George Floyd’s murder. Derek Chauvin who placed his knee on Floyd’s neck is charged with second-degree murder, an upgraded charge from the original charge of third-degree murder.
The other three officers, Thomas Lane and Alexander Kueng, who helped restrain the dying Floyd, and Tou Thao who was standing by and keeping bystanders away, are now charged with aiding and abetting second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
Aroun R. Deen is a Sierra Leonean journalist who worked at the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service and is now based in New York City
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