I could not hold back my tears while watching “Selma”, a movie that highlights the infamous episode 50 years ago in Selma, Alabama state. The marchers demanding voting rights for African Americans were beaten up, tear gassed, bloodied and turned back as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. I also could not hold back my outrage when I saw the clip of Sureshbhai Patel being brutally attacked by police in the same State.
The ensuing unrest after Selma protests galvanised the U.S. and compelled President Johnson and the Congress to pass the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It’s a paradox of history that by that year, Indians of all hues were enjoying voting rights universally as they had been enshrined in its Constitution in 1950. However, in neither country the work of bringing an end to discrimination seems to be over.
Last month, in celebration of the historic Selma event President Obama joined about 40,000 Americans at the very place and in an emotional speech declared that ‘the road that runs through Selma is long’ and that ‘we know the march is not yet over. We know the race is not yet won.’ He knows it well as he had suffered discrimination and caustic comments. Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani once even questioned the president’s love of America.
Discrimination may not be as blatant in the U.S. now, as it was in ‘50s or ‘60s but its existence is indisputable. The news and videos of police killing innocent and unarmed black persons makes headlines with surprising frequency. Seventy six men and women, mostly black, were killed in police custody since the 1999 death of Amadou Diallo in New York.
But what is startling is that often justice is denied, police is not indicted and court sets the accused free. Last year Brisbon, an unarmed black father of four, was shot to death, when a police officer apparently mistook his bottle of pills for a gun. There are cases when police has claimed the victim shot himself while he was handcuffed. In case of Kimani Gray, 16, Police said he pointed a revolver at them. Friends and family say he never had a gun, and a witness says he never pointed one at police. The cops shot a total of 11 rounds, striking Gray several times. No indictments for the cops so far.
Race like caste is a complex phenomenon. There are about 3.5 million Indians settled in the U.S. many of whom still practice caste in this land of free. Many upper caste people who are scientists, professors and doctors proudly declare their caste. Others from the lower caste shy away from talking about it, both being the two sides of the same ‘caste coin’. Marriages of children are within caste, rituals like thread ceremony followed and temple priests are mostly Brahmins. Caste based organisations like Brahman Samaj, Agarwal Association, Rajput Dhobi Samaj, Veerashaiva Samaj of North America seem to be thriving.
However, the society that still practices such discrimination has now to deal with hate crimes against Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. After 9/11 the attacks on these groups have increased. In 2012 in the Gurudwara attack six Sikhs were killed and several other injured .The protests and efforts of six lawmakers have made Department of Justice’s Hate Crime to agree to tracking of crimes against Sikh, Hindu and Arab-American communities.
The race, caste discrimination and the issues of economic opportunities and identities have survived globalisation and a shrinking world. Clearly ‘the race is not yet won’, neither in India nor in the US.
