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CH 13: Skin color and systemic racism
Tell me one thing: if the color of blood below the skin is red for all of you, then why does the color of your skin matter so much that you indulge in the kind of brutality that even puts me to shame? If my presence stops you from breathing, it is due to the sheer nature of my chemical composition − over which I have no control. Your acts, however, show that you can be worse than me − i.e. stopping your fellow human from breathing by your deliberate acts of cruelty.
The world was horrified when it saw footage of an unarmed, handcuffed man begging for his life with a knee pressed into his neck. He was calling for mercy, saying “Please don’t shoot me…I am going to die here man, I just had COVID, I am scared”- why did you not pay heed to his desperate pleas? He survived me, but succumbed to your senseless assault on his life – congratulations on your efficacy! Now let me ask you, would this have happened if the victim and the perpetrator shared the same skin tone? It is an irony that in this country 1 in every 1,000 black men have died because of me, whereas 1 in every 1,000 black men can expect to lose their lives due to police brutality.
I may be harmful and fatal, but I am neither deliberately brutal nor purposefully discriminatory like some of you are. I did not infect anybody based on their money, power, skin color, or social status. If I have infected a homeless poor person, I also have not spared kings and queens living in castles, or presidents and prime ministers living in palaces. So, if I am branded as the “invisible enemy”, some of you have proven yourselves to be an “open enemy”. However, all is not lost, as I saw ray of hope in those who refused to remain silent and took to the streets around the world whenever wrong was done to your fellow humans − even at the risk of their own wellbeing as they knew they were being exposed to me at that time as they joined the protest rallies.
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