Killing Black Americans: ‘Just see what Democrats can get away with now’

The Democratic Party in the United States is the most effective of two evils, says a Montreal-based author, noting that the Democrats have been accused of being the “gravedigger” of social movements and can get away with anything.

Arnold August, a member of the Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network, told Press TV that the struggle for the Black community in the US consisted of a major political uprising against the ruling elite, but it fizzled out once Joe Biden, who picked Kamala Harris as the first Black vice president, was thrust onto the political scene.

“It is for this reason that organizations in the US such as the Black Alliance for Peace Solidarity Network accuse the Democratic Party of being the gravedigger of social movements,” he said.

The tragic death of Keenan Anderson, the cousin of a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, after he was repeatedly tasered by police officers in Los Angeles, has sparked a massive outcry in the United States.

Anderson, 31, cousin of Patrisse Cullors, died at a hospital in Santa Monica, California, after suffering a cardiac arrest following the incident on the afternoon of January 3 in Los Angeles’ Venice neighborhood.

In a 13-minute body-cam footage released by LAPD on Wednesday, Anderson is seen begging for help as multiple officers hold him to the ground and one officer presses his elbow along with his body weight onto his neck.

Police killing of Black Lives Matter co-founder’s cousin sparks outcry in US

The death of Keenan Anderson, the cousin of a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement, after he was repeatedly tasered by police officers in Los Angeles has sparked a massive outcry in the US.

According to August, the Black Agenda Report (BAR) has highlighted the danger of the Democratic Party as the “lesser of two evils” in the US, thus contributing toward co-opting the Black Lives Matter movement at the grassroots into a “harmless defender of the status quo.”

“The thesis of BAR has been, unfortunately correct. The Democrats are the most effective of two evils,” he said. “Just see what they can get away with now.”

He also pointed out that although half of the people shot and killed by US police are White, Black people in the United States are shot at a disproportionate rate.

“They account for roughly 14 percent of the US population and are killed by police at more than twice the rate of White Americans,” he told Press TV. “Hispanic Americans are also killed by police at a disproportionate rate. The number of fatal police shootings has risen slightly in recent years.”

Elsewhere in his remarks, August said it is deplorable that the Biden administration denounces the Islamic Republic’s alleged “repression” and “violence”, while the US remains by far the most violent country in the world.

The police violence has assumed alarming proportions in the US in recent years, with people of color being the main targets.

A 2021 study in the medical journal The Lancet recorded 30,800 deaths from police violence across the country between 1980 and 2018, far higher than estimates offered by the US National Vital Statistics System. 

It said more than 55 deaths of deaths from police violence in the US from 1980 to 2018 were misclassified or unreported in official vital statistics reports.

Moreover, according to new data released earlier this month, US police killed at least 1,176 people in 2022, making it the deadliest year on record for police violence in the country since experts first started tracking the killings.

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