Last Updated on June 7, 2020, 1:51 AM AST by Anthony Morris
Hundreds of Jamaicans gathered on Saturday wearing black clothes and facing the blistering sun to lend support to the ongoing global protests against the police abuses initiated by the death of George Floyd last month in Minneapolis.
These people stood outside the United States Embassy in Kingston with t-shirts and signs which said, “Black Lives Matter” and “Enough is Enough,” while they demanded justice for Floyd as well as other Jamaicans who have died to date, at the hands of security forces.
Floyd, a black American, had died in Minneapolis after a white police officer had knelt on his neck during an arrest.
The protests in Kingston were peaceful, and the police mostly stood by watching as demonstrators raised their concerns.
Michael Pottinger, 58, said that he had come there to protest against the injustice and systematic racism.
According to a government-backed study, more than 3,000 Jamaicans have been killed at the hands of law enforcement officials since 2000.
In a country where the majority of people are of African descent, Jamaicans say that racism could take on subtler forms.
23-year-old Jemila Henry expressed solidarity with protesters in the U.S. and also wanted to raise awareness regarding local problems.
She said that there are persons in Jamaica who do not believe that people experience anything remotely racist. Still, technically it can be described as colourism.
She also noted that Jamaicans with a lighter skin tone are considered to be superior to those with darker skin.
70-years-old Alice Hogarth, who had organized a separate protest at Emancipation Park in central Kingston, said that racism because of skin the colour might be less blatant, but classism still prevails.
Lloyd D’Aguilar, Human rights activist who had attended the protest at the U.S. Embassy, was concerned regarding the lack of action on the killings by the security forces in Jamaica.
Anthony Morris covers stories related to politics and regional developments. His in-depth reporting about governance and reforms makes him stand out in regional journalism, with a deep analysis of political trends and their impact on Caribbean communities.
