Denial of justice has long plagued this land. It is no strange occurrence for human atrocities to be committed, ride the waves of our collective consciousness before fading out of memory. That is, until another atrocity makes itself known and the cycle repeats itself.
Accountability has never been a strong point in our population. Politicians blatantly shirk it, policing forces disrespect it and for those who aren’t personally impacted, they are largely unconcerned with it. We have become so accustomed with rage burning bright and short that we fail to recognize how we contribute to maintaining patterns of violence in our homes and communities.
While the memories of Joel Henry, Isaiah Henry and Haresh Singh have been waning from the larger public mind, their communities still remain in a state of grieving and anger. The sloth of the police force has contributed to the lack of safety and protection felt within these communities. To be fair to our policing systems however, they have never really inspired faith in their interest nor capacity to solve crimes, particularly those that have an ethnic dimension. For as long as they have been established, the police have been neither friends nor protectors to anyone other than the rich and connected.
The argument is oft made that it is a lack of training and resources that contributes to the inefficiency of our forces – but their issue lies in their foundation. Police system foundations are not based on service and protection; they are often based on violence, subjugation and mistrust. This of course does not bode well for the memories of the victims, nor the grieving loved ones that are left behind.
Following the murders, the protest actions that spread along the West Coast Berbice and several other areas drew large condemnation. The protests were framed as being excessive and hindering the investigation into the heinous crimes. This of course had to do with the way in which Black grief and rage are always framed as being criminal and not deserving of sympathy. While alleged elements of racial targeting certainly must be condemned, the ire the protests drew was largely undeserved. These protests were based on the very real knowledge that the police would not be able to provide them with the justice that was needed.
The murders of the Henry boys’ shook the core of what we believe we are, but many are still yet to understand that they were by no means the first to die from such apparent hate crimes in our idyllic country. The retaliatory ethnic killings from as far back as the 60s are often brought forward as evidence, but there are many recent hate crimes that simply do not make the news. As macabre as it was though, it was good that the murders opened the eyes of some to see the gruesome truth that they have been living with and have been willfully blind to. Yet of course, we still have those who believe that our problem is politics and not with each other. Politics play a role in our ethnic tensions but it does not begin nor end there.
Over time, growing up in several parts of Berbice made it apparent to me that Sundown Towns were not things that were known only to our visitors from the North. Warnings to meet home before the sun sets, to always let people know where you’re going and with who and to never visit communities at night that you were not a part of were heavily instilled. These things that before seemed practices of good manners aimed to set the minds of worrying grandparents at ease, with time came to be understood as necessary protection for Black children, particularly Black males.
Many families have stories very similar to that of the Henry boys with similar tales of injustice. Black people across Guyana have had to deal with constant murders and discrimination in their everyday lives. This constant navigation of injustice continues to impact the collective physical, mental and emotional health of our communities. We tend to ignore the effects of racial trauma and embrace harmful ideals of always being strong and on guard. The impacts of the trauma faced however continue to be seen in everything – from the way we distance ourselves from Blackness to the way we abuse and strengthen rifts between each other.
Despite our short history, our nation has a long shared story of violent trauma that continues to impact all of our people and their interactions with one another. The larger ethnic skirmishing that we have seen this year is indicative of how little we have grown as a people. There is no one solution to our ethno-political, economic and social ills, but it does begin with empathy and accountability. Empathy for each other and our varying lived experiences and accountability for the active and passive harm caused against minority populations.
