Genocidal Realities

Mistrial for Cop Who Killed Aiyana Stanley-Jones... Pig Comments on Trayvon... Racists Tweets v. Mexican-American Kid... Deadly Health Disparities

June 30, 2013 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

In speaking to the situation facing Black and Latino people in the U.S.—the mass incarceration and school-to-prison pipeline, the criminalization and demonization of a whole generation of youth, the overt or just-below-the-surface racism prevalent in society, etc.—Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party has said what is taking place is a slow genocide that could quickly turn into a fast genocide. This regular feature highlights aspects of this slow genocide.

The genocidal reality for all Black people was brutally brought home in May 2010 when Detroit police raided a house in the middle of the night and killed Aiyana Stanley-Jones, who was sleeping on the couch with her grandmother. Aiyana was seven years old when her life was so suddenly and horribly stolen. The police first fired a flash-bang grenade from outside the house, severely burning Aiyana. The cops then fired into the house, murdering her in cold blood. The police claimed they were looking for a "suspect"—but that person lived in a separate flat above where Aiyana and her family lived.

And now, three years later, there is outrage upon outrage—on June 16, a judge declared a mistrial in the trial of the only cop to be charged in the case. The cop, who claims that he "accidentally" fired his gun, was charged not with murder but with involuntary manslaughter. No other cop involved in the raid or any responsible officials have even been charged.

As Mertilla Jones said soon after the police murder of Aiyana: "I seen the light leave outta her eyes. I knew she was dead. She had blood coming out of her mouth. Lord Jesus, I ain't never seen nothing like that in my life. My 7-year-old grandbaby—my beautiful, beautiful gorgeous granddaughter. My goodness, what type of people?! ... what type of people?! You can't trust the police. You can't trust Detroit police."

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Listen to a couple of former cops talk about Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old Black youth killed by racist vigilante George Zimmerman—and think about what this shows about how cops view oppressed youth in general:

On June 11, 2013, former New York City police detective Harry Houck wrote in a FoxNews.com chat: "Listen, Trayvon Martin would be alive today if he didn't have a street attitude. That's the bottom line."

Mark Fuhrman, the infamous former LAPD detective who was exposed as a racist during the O.J. Simpson trial, is now a commentator on Fox News. During a June 10 discussion on Fox News, Fuhrman called Trayvon Martin a "dead suspect." He said, "It's not a direct evidence case, it's kind of a super-circumstantial case. There's really no eyewitnesses, there's no forensic evidence, there's the statements of George Zimmerman and a dead victim or dead suspect, however or which side you're on, you're going to describe Trayvon Martin. But that's the circumstance."

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Sebastien De La Cruz, an 11-year-old Mexican-American, sang the national anthem at Game 3 of the NBA finals on June 12, 2013, dressed in a mariachi suit. This touched off a massive onslaught of racist tweets, including those that called him a "wetback" and "illegal."

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An African-American woman is four times as likely to die in childbirth as a white woman. Statistics show that 32 percent of Black women do not receive prenatal care, care that can increase the chances of a woman having a healthy baby and a safer delivery. The death rate for Black women from breast cancer is 41percent higher than that of white women. Many African-American women do not have access to medical care that may detect the disease at an earlier stage when chances for successful treatment are greater.

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