From Ferguson to Selma, an American Poison

Since the 1960s, racism has undoubtedly declined in the United States, mostly because of mingling populations. But it remains subtle at the institutional level: within the police force, and the prison and penal systems.

This Saturday in Alabama, Barack Obama is giving a much-awaited speech during the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery in support of voting rights that ended in bloodshed at the hands of white police officers.

Around a hundred elected officials from Congress will be present, including John Lewis, one of the victims of the racist violence on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and George W. Bush. The event, elegantly [produced for the] screen by the African-American film director Ava DuVernay, should present an opportunity to show how much progress has been made since the dark days of the Jim Crow laws and racial segregation.

On the contrary, for the first black U.S. president, the Selma ceremony will perhaps, be the place to stress that the victories obtained by civil rights figures like Martin Luther King, Bayard Rustin or even Maya Angelou are not final, and that the fight for racial equality goes on. The Reverend Frederick Douglas Reese, a cellmate of Martin Luther King that Le Temps met with last June in Selma, acknowledges it: “I sometimes have the impression that America has learned very little.”* The recent police blunders have shed light on the very strained relationship between the police and minorities, especially African-Americans. On Wednesday, because of lack of tangible evidence, the U.S. Justice Department refused to indict the white police officer who killed Michael Brown, the young African-American, last August in Ferguson, a small Missouri town. But it documented the racist attitude of the police department that likely created the climate that made this type of incident possible.

Since the 1960s, racism has undoubtedly declined in the United States, mostly because of mingling populations. But it remains subtle at the institutional level: within the police force, and the prison and penal systems. Even under Barack Obama’s presidency, black people keep paying the price of a heavy past by staying confined in ghettos that were created by the racist policies of the Federal Housing Administration.

George W. Bush’s presence in Selma will be mildly appreciated, after all. It’s the judges he appointed to the Supreme Court who, in 2013, undermined a major part of the voting rights law. It’s also under his presidency during which deregulation led to the Great Recession that disproportionately hit the black community.

*Editor’s Note: The original quotation, accurately translated, could not be verified.