A Black History Celebration: Black Officers Belong in a Toilet, Says a Letter from Connecticut, USA
At a time when the United States of America is celebrating Black History month and reminding the people and the world of the historical pains, racial struggles and winnings of Blacks, we keep coming back to the question of whether there will always be signs of racist predisposition in White America.
A recent racist-driven letter was found stuffed in police mailboxes at the Bridgeport Police Department in Connecticut, reportedly filled with disparaging and threatening words. The letter was on Bridgeport Police Department letterhead and was found in mailboxes in an area not open to members of the public.
The letter reportedly began and ended with the term "White power," and is in addition to previous hate-filled messages received within the police department over the past year. These letters usually single out Blacks; this time it was particularly about one officer, Clive Higgins, who was just acquitted last month of civil rights violation charges in the beating of a Hispanic suspect.
Unlike Officer Higgins, a White officer and a Hispanic officer pleaded guilty and were sentenced to three months in jail.
In this racist letter, Officer Higgins was warned to “watch your back,” apparently because the writer could not understand how an “inferior being” within the American cultural environment could be set free while a White person received punishment?
Like a good number of public institutions in America, this police department was found
to be plagued with racial discrimination by a federal judge in 1978 against minority officers.
It was only about four years ago that the judge-appointed special master, who was to oversee the assignment and discipline of officers, ended his duties in 2010.
Why after all these years of being monitored would this police department again be the recipient of anti-Black police personnel messages? Could it be that some Whites just can't help being racist due to some form of mental and physical predispositions?
This racist act is not surprising given the recent reports that since Barack Obama came into the American presidency, the spread of racism and hatred against Blacks has markedly increased.
Non-Blacks are always being reminded in writing by Local, State and Federal, as well corporate entities, that there exist zero-tolerance policies against racism and discrimination in the work place, but we have heard this before, again, and again.
While we will never know if there are predisposition-related factors in some Whites that make them more susceptible to racist behaviors, one reality is clear; America's great melting pot is being forced to adapt to the increasing population of non-Whites; a factor that aggressively defined the loss of Mitt Romney who, in the last presidential election, won the support of 59 per cent of Whites, but in spite of this number of White support, lost to Obama due to other Whites coming to his side, plus the collective number of Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans, African-Americans, native-Americans and other non-Whites.
Here we have a White man like Romney soundly trounced by a person named Barack Hussein Obama—a man of White American, Black African, Christian, Islamic and Eastern backgrounds. Thirty years ago, this could not have happened, as being unpopular with Blacks and other ethnic minorities would hardly have stopped a White man, such as Romney, from hammering Obama. But back then, Whites were almost 90 per cent.
So, to whoever wrote that racist letter in Connecticut, be very aware that within 30 years Whites will no longer be the majority, and as such, there is need to tame that inner predisposition and face the future racial reality of America. Therefore, let all of us work together for the betterment of the human race. Happy Black History Month!
Dr. John Egbeazien Oshodi is a Forensic/Clinical Psychologist, and a Consultant in National Psychology. [email protected]