US People’s Protest Against Racism Needs To Extend Palestinian Lives Matter
We salute Supreme Court judges who issue a statement of solidarity with protests going on against violence and injustices against Black Americans in the Black Lives Matters campaign.
It is true that prejudices and injustices exist against the black community prevalent within the justice systems of the United States of America. The judges confirmed the pre-existing racism in the system.
The letter reads as- “Devaluation and degradation of black lives is not a recent event. It is a persistent and systemic injustice that predates this nation’s founding. But recent events have brought to the forefront of our collective conscience a painful fact that is, for too many of our citizens, common knowledge: the injustices faced by black Americans are not relics of the past.”
We confirm US is indeed plagued with prejudiced behaviour of the justice system against the black community, in fact against the weaker international communities especially the Palestinians.
We observed that the American establishment have not spoken loud and clear enough against racial prejudice. They need to link with the broader struggle for justice and freedom around the world. The presence of “racialised policing and the overrepresentation of black Americans in every stage of our criminal and juvenile justice system is real.
The “vestiges of slavery: Jim Crow laws that were never dismantled and racist court decisions that were never disavowed have been the crux of the injustice.
The blacks African-American have been victimes of systematic inequalities and the lack of financial, personal or systemic support. The judges states ” the systemic oppression of black Americans is not merely incorrect and harmful; it is shameful and deadly.”
We urge that the world to support the black lives matters movement in the US. But we believe also that all lives matters and it must also be lauded. With the same breath we call the movement to bridge its message with the Palestinians who have been brutally oppressed , denied of dignity and human rights.
The world is watching and listening. While the horrendous murder of George Floyd sends a more encompassing message of demand for a stop to systemic racism, we are calling for a world uprising against US injustice at the international level.
Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid
President Malaysian Consultative Council of Islamic Organizations (MAPIM)
