Diamond’s Prayer
Diamond Reynolds, girlfriend of Philando Castille [Image:Web]
“Please Lord, wrap your hands around him. Please Lord make sure that he is breathing, that he’s ok. Please lord you know our rights lord, you know we are an innocent people lord”. (Prayer by Diamond Reynolds as she watched her boyfriend Philando Castille dying after being shot by a police officer for a broken tail-light, in Minnesota, USA in July, 2016).
The painful and plaintive cry uttered by Diamond Reynolds to the heavens as she watched her boyfriend Philando Castille’s life ebbing slowly away after he was unnecessarily shot by a police officer is reminiscent of the utterances of the Old Testament prophets whose words of prayer portended the destruction of stiff-naked civilisations which were doing harm to guiltless populations.
There is much in the issues emergent from the Philando Castille shooting moment which hints at the possibility of a turning point in US race relations. We are indeed in a revolutionary moment, but as all revolutionary moments go, they can end either in reinforcing reaction or in social liberation.
We cannot underestimate the way in which the new communications technology is revolutionising not only our awareness of the world, but equally importantly our understanding of how we can change it.
A clear example of this was how Diamond Reynolds was able to film the shooting and offer a running commentary of her situation to the world. Whilst thousands of blacks and others have been killed by US police officers in the past, the impact of witnessing first-hand the incident, hearing the amazing calmness respect and decency in her voice, the hysteria and panic in the policeman’s shouts, and the deep final breaths of Castile has no doubt been more powerful than any sanitised second-hand report on the shooting.
Contrast this to the report on the Baton Rouge sniper who was killed by a police robot bomb and whose voice was never heard. While Diamond Reynold’s video allows us to judge for ourselves, we are expected to suspend suspicion and accept the police report as it is given.
Coming one day after the publicised shooting of Castille, the unprecedented sniper attack on armed police officers and the immediate killing of the shooter, constitute a rapid occurrence of strange events too rare to be easily believed. Indeed, the main result of the sniper’s shooting of police officers has been to divert public attention from the Castille shooting.
Despite the current diversions, it is difficult to see how the USA can ever be the same again following Reynold’s video.
Reynolds herself appears to be bright and articulate, and has now committed herself to political struggle. She was minding her business when a historical moment found her. She is a wonderful symbol of the spirit of the oppressed black population by the dignity and poise with which she has answered the call.
CNIDOH/AO
