Letter: ​White supremacy is a global and local evil

TO THE EDITOR:

On April 1, Duke students found a noose hanging from a tree on their campus. The racially charged symbol of violence remains potent in a region responsible for the extrajudicial killings of nearly 3,500 African-Americans between 1882 and 1968. 

On March 18, UVa. honors student Martese Johnson suffered a brutal beating at the hands of police in Charlottesville, Virginia.

In January, an extremist group in northern Nigeria massacred up to 2,000 civilians, while media attention focused on the 20 victims of Paris’ Charlie Hebdo attacks. 

In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), investigators uncovered over 400 bodies earlier this month, likely murdered during government crackdowns on peaceful protests. English-language media did not report the discovery until days later.

In South Africa, students at the University of Cape Town advocate for the removal of landmarks honoring colonial figureheads, as students at UNC continue a 15-year fight demanding accountability for a legacy of violent racism.

What do these events have in common? In an increasingly interconnected world, “the West” can look with pride upon the spread of the internet and democracy. We can follow with amusement the globalization of Coca-Cola and Beyonce.

But we also must take ownership of the international consequences of an ideology of racial inequality that continues to inform the present.

While institutional racism does not operate identically in Cape Town or Chapel Hill, in Durham or Kinshasa, the scourge of white supremacy continues to define the lived experiences of black lives across the globe.

Danielle Allyn

Senior

Global studies, sociology