By Kehinde Andrews
The shooting of eleven police officers in Dallas is a surprise, not because of the violence itself but because it does not happen more often. Such horrific violence against the police is a product of the condition of Black life in the US, and the brutal role that the police force play in enforcing systematic racial oppression.
Black life does not matter. Black life has never mattered to the Western empire that emerged after Columbus’s wrong turn in 1492. In fact, the entire system is built on the premise that Black life is worthless. The transatlantic slave trade reduced Black life to the value of disposable chattel to be bought, sold, raped, tortured and discarded. Colonialism continued the atrocities that slavery ignited, decimating whole regions. If you think that these are problems from the past then you only need to look to the 3 million children under the age of five who died in Sub-Saharan Africa last year. Black life does matter and it is certainly worth less in the USA.
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