A video showing white members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity (SAE) at the University of Oklahoma chanting for the exclusion and lynching of blacks is a blip in a long history of racist incidents. Each of these incidents is a call for action that don’t seem to be taken seriously.
Greater racial equality and black empowerment have been achieved through the brave efforts of black civil rights activists but the current rigidity of unfair American institutions have slowed their efforts to a stalemate. It’s now appropriate for blacks to consider alternative options.
These Americans should consider immigrating to Canada, not because it’s so great here, but because it’s so bad there.
This isn’t an instance of blacks leaving black problems but rather blacks leaving white problems.
The 1968 Kerner Commission, established to find out why black people rioted in American cities in 1967, found economic segregation, lack of job opportunities, and white racism as the reason. This racism hasn’t been overcome as blacks are still discriminated against when it comes to taking out a loan in predominantly-black neighbourhoods, while inherent racism denies blacks job opportunities, among other things.
White migration to suburbia devastated municipal tax bases and left black inner-city areas without the right infrastructure to support an economically disadvantaged population. This legally separate and unequal form of settlement turned black neighbourhoods into slums.
In some cases, it’s becoming worse.
The 1965 Voting Rights Act, the product of the Selma to Montgomery march, was slashed by a 2013 Supreme Court decision invalidating Justice Department oversight of state voter qualifications. More black men, as said by John Legend at the last Oscars, are in prison today than were enslaved in 1850.
The Kerner Commission failed to mention police racism, but it was a problem in 1967 as it is today. The non-indictments of Darren Wilson, the cop who killed Michael Brown, and Justin Damico, the police officer who suffocated Eric Garner to death, shows the justice system fails to protect blacks from prejudice by law enforcement, just as it did with the murder of civil rights activist Jimmie Jackson in 1965 Selma.
After the non-indictment of Wilson, it was said on social media that non-black individuals are privileged to be appalled, but blacks have to live in its fear. For them, the legal system is rendered useless.
America’s founding document said “all men are created equal,” but racism creeps into its political system that rests upon that phrase. About 25 per cent of Americans had doubts or didn’t believe U.S. President Barack Obama was born in America, according to 2010 polls.
Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City, home to two million blacks, said in February Obama doesn’t love America because he “wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up.” Members of the SAE have to adjust their lives because of their actions, but Giuliani, albeit less odious in his remarks, goes on without social consequence.
Canada, despite its shortfalls, has welcomed immigrants who have faced racism. Ten thousand South Africans arrived in Canada in 1980 escaping the apartheid regime. The concept of first-world emigration may seem radical to some but my own Chinese-Malaysian parents left Australia for Canada in the 1980s because of racist and xenophobic sentiments.
Unquestionably, they have found Canada more tolerant and economically equal.
Leaving America is not unwise because black contribution and fondness for America is not reciprocated. It is not cowardly because responsibility for change lies with the white majority, regardless if none or all are prejudiced. Therefore, Canada should provide a home for emigrating black people.
