"Systemic Racism"... There, We Said It.

Silence doesn’t sit well with me. My father would probably add, "Since you were 6".

On the 9th of October, a young Mauritian woman, Elodie Thomas, was shot by a police officer while on her way back home from her night shift. The van, also transporting other employees, was stopped by the police amid tensions that had been mounting due to a lack of water in the locality. As the driver was asked to drive off, a shot was fired and hit Mrs Thomas, lodging itself in her neck. This sent shockwaves across the entire population. Nights of unrest in several regions would follow, with curfews imposed.

The sergeant has been taken into custody and an investigation is in progress. Very importantly, Mrs Thomas has since had surgery and is showing encouraging signs of recovery, even taking her first steps with assistance. She recently wrote a handwritten message for her 2-year-old daughter.

That’s for the background story.

What interests me today is how quickly we moved from what happened to those people taking to the streets burning down police stations, tyres and blocking roads, to focusing on othering and labelling them as “terrorists”, as people with “issues”, with the PM considering lowering the age of criminal responsibility to …12 years old.

So, let’s pause and rewind.

The tensions arose in the 1st place due to a lack of water. Water. A vital basic necessity. Students are going to school without drinking water, families can’t shower, people don't know how to go to work in those conditions.

What was the response? Police presence.

This made me wonder: if this had happened in the more touristic areas, would we have sent the police?

Would the lack of water have been allowed to reach that point? While some can shower at leisure, others can’t meet their basic needs.

So instead of listening, we send the police. We oppress, we silence, we intimidate.

What’s also interesting is what brings the other regions into the upsurge. The lack of water? Maybe.

Beneath the outburst of rage lies something deeper, that we feel, that we know, but don't want to mention. It’s the systemic and institutional racism and injustice that have been in place for decades (for some, generations), dehumanising particular communities, excluding them from opportunities in the public sector, from education, and from access to water, electricity, reliable public transportation, and housing. A system denying them human dignity, safety, equality, and livelihood. Leaving those communities struggling to meet basic needs, despite all their efforts.

Now, add to that the current cost of living crisis.

The shooting of this young mother striving to bring bread to the table was the breaking point. Many identified with Mrs Thomas and expressed their “we’ve had enough."

When we don’t look at the systems that are holding their knees on people’s… necks, we are not looking at the very conditions creating the problem in the 1st place. We're also avoiding taking responsibility.

Any solution that doesn’t look at the violence of those systems, that doesn’t hear out those communities, but instead suppresses their voices, won't be adequate.

And being silent about this makes us complicit in systemic racism and the perpetuation of its violence.