The Tribune

By DR IAN BETHELL-BENNETT

AS we recover from the recent violence in Baltimore and the targeting of black males as perpetrators of violence, we need to consider where our country stands on this.

It is obvious that race in the US has not changed; there remains a strongly systemic anti-black sentiment. That sentiment is legitimised through cultural violence, or what can be argued is a culture of violence.

The state legitimises its exploitation of blacks because they are inferior, violent and poor. The socio-economic factor underlies an entire process of alienation, as long as one is poor, one does not need the same consideration as others who work hard and are justly rewarded in and by society.

Young black males are seen as poor by the state; they are also seen as dangerous because they are poor and black. They must therefore be controlled by any means possible. This danger legitimises violence against them. They are unequal and need not be treated as if they were equal. In 2015, 50 years after the protest marches against racial discrimination, the problem has not disappeared. A young, black male in an urban centre in the US will not be treated the same way as a young, white male. Again, the concept that the former is dangerous and poor and not worthy of good treatment operates here.

In the Bahamas, while arguably a black country, similar trends function. The state uses the same premise to exploit many of its poorer citizens. In the wake of the celebration of Black Tuesday, where ‘black power’ was demonstrated in Parliament, which led up to Majority Rule, people are still legitimately exploited and sidelined based on their skin tone, financial status and gender. Women and young, poor, black males are worth less than others (those in power). While the Mace and the Hourglass, some symbols of authority, may have been thrown out of the window, the structure of inequality and violence remained intact.

The government legitimised its claim to power through the very same structures that were their pre-Independence. Women were not easily given suffrage; they fought for it. That fight is now different. They are overwhelmingly discriminated against, notwithstanding they’re black in a black country. They are less equal and are exploited accordingly.

However, it is also significant the number of young females who are the recipients of violence. We seem to be justifying rampant violence through structural inequality. Structural inequality glamorises violence. Cultural violence normalises or legitimises violence in a particular place. When a government is silent about exploitation in its country, the government legitimises exploitation, which could eventually lead to alienation and then to violent disassociation, we see this alienation with young people of Haitian descent.

The government encourages violence and exploitation through its failure to act to promote equality within its society. We have seen this recently in a number of areas, one of these is the Rubis case of environmental contamination and the other is in the failure to bring the referendum for women’s equality to the people in a timely manner, which would be in line with its international obligations.

In the former case, the government knowingly allowed the company to contaminate the ground water and the general environment of a community. Government has more rights than the population, is what is being said here, and the government can determine if a company may indirectly or directly exploit its citizens through its laws and legislation. The government has now condoned the exploitation of its citizens through its lack of disclosure and its willingness to allow residents to remain unenlightened about the dangers they face in their own homes.

During colonial days, it was felt that young, black people from areas such as Grants and Bain Towns were violent and untrustworthy. They needed to be civilised. Young women were also civilised, but this process was different.

When the country removed the yoke of colonialism from around its neck, there was meant to have been a freedom for black and white and brown people in the post-Independence state. This promise has been short-lived. Young, poor, black males still face Baltimore-like alienation at the hands of the police in this country. We now legitimise this by saying that they are descendants of Haitians or Haitian and so not citizens, even if they are citizens; they are made second class citizens, much like blacks under colonial rule. This effectively alienates them from the mainstream body and allows their rights and humanity to be usurped by the state.

Young, black women still face exploitation at the hands of employers in this country. Apparently, all citizens who are less rich, less influential and less educated face exploitation and silence at the hands of state players or state-empowered agencies.

There may be more educated, young black women in the country than there are males, but they are not equally represented in the upper echelons of the public sphere as are men.

They may do better in school, but they are not paid equally. They do not enjoy the same rights. They do, sadly, suffer more discrimination and exploitation because the law allows it. Two recent cases of young girls being raped, sexually exploited and killed attest to this. We even talk about their suffering differently: it is less important and less damning to the country and the government. This legitimisation of violence is based on their inequality in society, much like those young males who apparently threaten our safety so much that they must be pulled aside when walking on Bay Street or Shirley Street and ruffed up to scare them into submission. They are worth less than other citizens.

Fifty years on from the Selma protest marches, how advanced are we in dealing with race and gender-based differences?

In a black country where capital is still controlled by the same power that ruled it in the pre-Independence days, where the structure of power remains as entrenched as it was prior to 1962, black people are still exploited by the state.

The state still condones the idea of cultural violence. If the Rubis spill had occurred anywhere else where people may have had more financial wherewithal or louder voices, what would have happened?

Colour remains a marker of status and importance, or one’s exploitability. If that young woman found hanging on Saturday morning were of a different gender and colour, what would have happened? Gender and race/shade and economics remain as entrenched markers that allow or disallow for exploitation as they were in the 1930s. If one is a poor, black male or a poor, black female, one can apparently be overlooked by the majority-rule government. When are we going to fix these gender-based and race-based legal loopholes and legislative gaps that not only allow but encourage inequality, exploitation and violence?