"In the images of jacked-up riot cops facing off against enraged citizens, we find an American city aping South African archival footage. It’s not just that America’s enduring, undying racial nightmare echoes South Africa’s, or vice versa—that’s both a no-shit truism and a vast over-simplification. But it’s a reminder that in divided countries with histories of institutionalized racism, reconciliation without actually reconciling—which is to say, hugging and making up without addressing the structurally ingrained disparities that keep old legacies alive—means that justice is not just impossible, but a massive cover-up, a ruse used by power to sucker everyone into quiescence....
This rage is contagious, and patient zero lies dead so deep in our terrible pasts that he or she untraceable, a smudge on history that we cannot remember and cannot forget"
This is tremendously well written, and I love this last line.
FB: a South African's perspective on the shooting of Michael Brown and systemic racism in America
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