Race riots in Missouri - King would recognise this hatred

"A riot," said Martin Luther King, "is the language of the unheard."

Whether the iconic civil rights leader would recognise the violence in Ferguson, Missouri as a consequence of political failure, a matter of social failure or just the most hateful realities of being human expressed through racism is hardly as important as the tragic fact that, 46 years after his assassination in Tennessee today’s sad scene, the violence and the hatred, would be heartbreakingly familiar.

That tragedy might be felt even more deeply if Rev King could understand that today America is led by a second-term black president. How could it be explained that this point in the world’s foremost — still — superpower’s development had been reached but that the old, dark fears and injustices are still powerful, forces playing out their sinister game?

It would be more than difficult to explain to Rev King why such force, a police force that seems more like an occupying army rather than protectors of the public peace, is set against people rightfully outraged by the fact that an unarmed teenager, Mike Brown, apparently prepared to surrender to police, was shot dead in broad daylight. Early tests show Brown was shot six times, twice in the head and, in a twist straight out of one of those Deep South horror stories, that he may have been shot by someone standing over him as he lay on the ground. If this is confirmed, and hopefuly it will not be, then we are in burning-crosses-on-front-lawns territory.

Brown’s death seems a most graphic expression of racism but there are many other ways that cancer is expressed, especially as the recession has been particularly difficult for African-Americans. Before the collapse the average net worth of a black household was $12,124 — barely €10,000 — compared with $134,992 — €101,000 — in white households. After the crunch, the black net worth fell to just $5,677, compared with $113,149 among whites. In May black unemployment was 11.5% — more than double the white rate of 5.4%.

And tragically there’s more. Family structures differ significantly: Just 29% of whites are born out of wedlock, the rate — 72% — more than doubles for blacks.

There is huge disparity in welfare dependency too. African-Americans make up about 13% of the population yet 39.8% of those dependent on welfare are black. Nearly every matrix screams inequity; four-out-of-five black women are overweight or obese and black women account for nearly 36% of all abortions in America.

In 1966, Martin Luther King tried to end segregation in Chicago but was stymied by mob violence and Machiavellian politicians. His initial failures made it difficult for him to convince his supporters that non-violence would deliver. “I need some help in getting this method across,” he pleaded. “A lot of people have lost faith in the establishment… They’ve lost faith in non-violence… those who make this peaceful revolution impossible will make a violent revolution inevitable... I need help. I need some victories, I need concessions.”

How sad it is, that nearly half a century later, that so much remains unchanged, that those pleas still seem unheard.