Heading for the streets sends out a strong message that a murky coexistence has gone terribly wrong. Engagement at this point is out of the question. Street protests across America today provide daily extravaganzas for the international media, and the world watches the sad spectacle of what has become of the United States, with an African-American president to boot. Rather than waiting for problems to unravel and then battering down the doors of police headquarters, human rights activists are advocating a more consistent positive action campaign even as the US deploys the National Guard to combat its own citizens. This is at a time when Washington has had the audacity to criticise countries such as Egypt for their alleged human rights violations. The Republican-dominated Congress and Senate are prevaricating over penalising Egypt and other US allies for their allegedly repressive actions and abuses of human rights that are ostensibly a cause of deep concern to the American people. Ironically, US President Barack Obama in his Thanksgiving address to the nation spoke optimistically of “our belief that America's best days are ahead”. “Our foreign partners are telling us [the release of the report on CIA torture overseas] will cause violence and deaths,” warned Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Mike Rogers. US Secretary of State John Kerry urged Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Diane Feinstein to consider the timing of the CIA torture report. The hypocrisy and double standards are mind-boggling. But the tide of American right-wing, fascistic populism is anything but unstoppable. The manipulation of grand juries in high-profile police killings has attracted increasing scrutiny even as it has shocked the world. Observers hoped that with a black president, racism in the US would become a historical tragedy of yesteryear. Alas, no. America is as racist as ever. In yet another outrage, the US is supporting the protesters in Hong Kong but is turning a deaf ear to the Ferguson protests. In the past, the Klu Klux Clan lynched innocent African-Americans engendering a reign of terror. Today, the US police force shoots defenseless blacks with utter impunity and a complete disregard for the civil rights of African-Americas. The American constitution is flagrantly scorned. African-Americans are being denied their inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The credibility of the world's superpower is fast waning. The regulatory calculus that undergirds the boast that the US is the global champion of human rights sounds increasingly hollow. Who in his or her right mind can take the US seriously now? The American legal system is bludgeoning blacks with rules and regulations that do not apply to whites. African-Americans have had enough. They are bristling with anger. Activists, white and black, have flown into a rage that is hard to mistake. The seething fury is providing a sorry spectacle for people around the world. A grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, chose not to indict the police officer who fatally shot a young black man. Incidents of prejudice against people of colour have caught the world's attention, such as the case of Michael Brown, for instance. This US 18-year-old was killed in cold blood and the grand jury set his killer free. In the Brown case, officer Darren Dean Wilson was permitted to offer hours of testimony in his own defense. In the end, he was not indicted. Saint Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch's objectivity was called into question, and the trustworthiness of the US police is under scrutiny. Sergeant Brandon Ruff, an eight-year veteran of the Philadelphia police, filed a police brutality lawsuit against his own department. Louisiana is the prison capital of the world. The state imprisons 1,619 people per 100,000, costing taxpayers US$663 million annually. Black inmates are also more likely to be on death row than whites. Yet, the peaceful protests of the human rights activists have been astounding, disrupting even the lighting of the Rockefeller Centre Christmas tree in New York. Eric Garner, the unarmed black man who was made famous worldwide by his “I can't breathe” plea, choked to death as the US police apprehended him. The grand jury's decision not to bring charges in the choke-hold death of Garner has deeply disturbed the world's conscience. Berkeley police protect property and attack peaceful protests. New York mayor Bill de Blasio has urged calm and restraint. Though the officers connected to the deaths of Garner and Brown were not indicted, Chicago police officer Dante Servin heads to court next January for shooting a 22-year-old African-American woman Rekia Boyd. Tragically, Boyd was shot in the back of the head by police in March 2012. In a case of twisted logic, a different Staten Island grand jury indicted Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed the incident, instead. So the killer goes free and the filmmaker is penalised for making the case public. Celebrities in America have championed the rights of the black victims, protesting against injustice in contemporary America. John Legend and Chrissy Teigen hired food trucks to feed protestors. LeBron James, the basketball star, and countless other luminaries protested against the lack of indictments of police officers and expressed their sympathy with the protesters and the families of the victims. Servin is the first Chicago police officer in 17 years to face criminal charges in a fatal shooting incident. “I believe the Ferguson shooting has brought awareness and hopefully it helps the case,” Boyd's brother, Martinez Sutton, told reporters. “It will be hurtful if they let this cop go. About 70 to 80 per cent of these shootings don't make any sense at all.” Curiously, in the cases of Becker and Servin, both detectives were off-duty at the time when they killed their victims. Political stability in America is now most certainly being undermined.
