https://vimeo.com/425383374 American police culture was built up to see black people as always on the verge of rebelling, and to treat them as criminal suspects in waiting. Gerald Horne on theAnalysis.news podcast with Paul Jay Transcript Paul Jay Hi, I'm Paul Jay, and welcome to theAnalysis.news podcast. Gerald Horne is a historian who holds the John Jay and Rebecca Morris, chair of history and African-American studies at the University of Houston. He's the author of many books, including The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism, The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy and Capitalism in 17th Century North America and the Caribbean. Thanks for joining us, Gerald.. Gerald Horne Thank you for inviting me. Paul Jay The world has heard the names of George Floyd, Freddie Gray, Oscar Grant, Michael Brown and many, many others brutally murdered by police officers steeped in a culture of racism and demonization of the poor. As brutal as capitalism is for most working people around the world compared to other advanced economies, at least after World War Two, in the US capitalism seems even more savage, even in its response to the pandemic. Many advanced capitalist countries have done much better than the United States. Why? Why is that, Gerald? And let's start with your reflections on the current situation in the streets and then talk about the roots of a culture that to a large part accepts the modern day lynching of black men. Gerald Horne Well, the current situation in the streets is rather historic. And in the United States we haven't seen such massive protests since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968. What's even more remarkable are the attacks on state power, not only the confrontation in the White House within the last few days that led the man known as Bunker Boy. That is to say, the 45th U.S. president scurrying with his family, escorted by Secret Service agents, into the bowels of the White House into a so-called safe space where he could hide in case the protesters breached the security of the White House. But also the protesters in Columbus, Ohio, at the statehouse breached security there and burnt down the police precinct in Minneapolis, which was the precinct nearby where George Floyd was killed. So these attacks on state power are quite significant. Also significant is the outburst of protests globally, not only in Toronto and Auckland, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia and London, England and Berlin, Germany, but also the fact that a high level representative of the African Union in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, called in the U.S. representative for urgent consultations concerning what's going on with regard to people of African descent in this country. So this is a very profound turn of events. And I must say personally, that in the last 24 to 48 to 72 hours, I've been besieged by media requests from Iran and Turkey in particular, believe it or not. And I think that the Iranians will take up my suggestion that they press this case of George Floyd and a prosecution of black people for the United Nations Human Rights Commission. Now, with regard to historical roots, one of the more disappointing aspects in terms of following the commentary is that few of the commentators were being asked to make points about these events, make reference to slavery, number one, because that's the key to unlock this question as to why it's so repetitively a black people and particularly black men. That is to say that there has been slavery as regards many black people in North America longer than there's been non slavery, and that during slavery, a certain culture was built up that tended to tr...
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