American Spring in Baltimore

By Vestnik Kavkaza

Recent developments in Baltimore caused a wide response, but only a few independent media dared to express their honest view on the events. For the majority of Western media, Freddy Grey’s death and the riots in Baltimore were used as a reason for betting ahead of the presidential elections in the US in 2016. However, the Independent posits that if what is happening in Baltimore happened in a foreign country, here is how Western media would cover it: “International leaders expressed concern over the rising tide of racism and state violence in America, especially concerning the treatment of ethnic minorities in the country and the corruption in state security forces around the country when handling cases of police brutality. The latest crisis is taking place in Baltimore, Maryland, a once-bustling city on the country’s Eastern Seaboard, where an unarmed man named Freddie Gray died from a severed spine while in police custody. Black Americans, a minority ethnic group, are killed by state security forces at a rate higher than the white majority population. Young, black American males are 21 times more likely to be shot by police than white American males.

The United Kingdom expressed concern over the troubling turn of events in the US in the last few months. The country’s foreign ministry released a statement: “We call on the American regime to rein in the state security agents who have been brutalizing members of America’s ethnic minority groups. The equal application of the rule of law, as well as respect for the human rights of all citizens, black or white, is essential for a healthy democracy.”

Palestine has offered continued assistance to American pro-democracy activists, sending anti-tear-gas kits to those protesting police brutality in various American cities. Egyptian pro-democracy groups have also said they will be sharing their past experience with U.S.-made counter-protest weapons.

A statement from the United Nations said, “We condemn the militarization and police brutality that we have seen in recent months in America, and we strongly urge American state security forces to launch a full investigation into the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore. There is no excuse for excessive police violence.” The U.N. called on the United States to make a concerted effort to make databases of police violence public to improve transparency and cut down on corruption in the justice system.

However, what has happened in real life? What reaction have the events of the so-called American Spring caused in the Western press? International human rights groups have appealed to the global community to facilitate asylum for America’s ethnic black minorities. When asked whether the European Union was willing to take on more black refugees risking their lives in fleeing American state violence, an E.U. human rights spokesman said: “More black refugees? We are dealing with our own Mediterranean crisis, so now is not really a good time for that for us. Furthermore, we believe in American solutions to American problems.”

The independent American media portal SALON reports that the American officials consider the people who are protesting in Baltimore to be bandits. The USA is living, according to the rejecting principle, as a country with limited historical prospects and a short memory. Any socially important event is being hushed up or taken out of context, and finally it is forgotten due to corporate news by the national media. The events in Baltimore are covered as a riot, rather than a reaction by the Afro-American population to violence and murders by American security services. The racial restrictions of US national policy require that society reacts to the ‘riots’ in Baltimore normally, associating them with ‘black gangs.’ Such an idea makes the white race supreme and helps to support the political, social, and economic systems of the state.

However, such a policy cannot go on forever in a country where one third of the population ate Afro-Americans and representatives of other ethnic minorities. It is impossible to hush it up forever. Sooner or later, the seeds of inequality of the American government will bear fruit.