Democratic lawmakers in US Congress took a knee before presenting legislation today to end excessive use of force by police across the States. The legislation should also make it easier to identify, track, and prosecute police misconduct.
The bill was introduced in response to the killings of unarmed black Americans by police officers - the latest tragic episode that sparked protests and demos all over the world, involved George Floyd, a black man killed in May by a Minneapolis policeman who knelt on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.
According to the proposed legislation - that should help providing more transparency - police officers involved in misconduct would not be protected from being prosecuted, choke-holds would be prohibited and there would be new restrictions to prevent law enforcement officers from using force. Besides, the Justice Department would be allowed to conduct investigations of potential misconduct and also help states conduct independent investigations. The legislation would also ban racial profiling and require police to wear body cameras; it would also create a "National Police Misconduct Registry" that would stop officers from transferring to a different department with past misconduct going undetected.
The bill will be discussed Wednesday at a House Judiciary Committee hearing where testimony on police brutality and racial profiling will also be heard, but the protests after George Floyd's death have already brought some changes with the mayors of New York and Los Angeles pledging to cut their departments' budgets. Besides, Minneapolis lawmakers vowed to disband the Minneapolis Police Department where four officers were charged with Floyd's killing.
Before discussing the bill, Karen Bass, Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Jerrold Nadler, the House Judiciary Committee Chairman, Senator Kamala Harris, Senator Cory Booker and Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, joined a group of Democrats in a tribute to George Floyd.
They took a moment of silence and knelt at Capitol's Emancipation Hall after reading the names of Floyd and others who were killed in accidents involving the police. All of them wore kente cloth scarves handed out by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC).
This is not the first time we see politicians opting to wear the kente scarves in a symbolical way: members of the CBC donned the yellow, green, black and red kente cloth scarves on 30th January 2018 during US President Donald Trump's State of the Union Speech at the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, DC. Their sartorial choice in that case represented a protest against Trump's racist statement in which he referred to Africa and Haiti as "sh*thole countries", urging more immigration from Norway.
Kente cloth is woven in narrow strips sewn together and is characterised by striking colours. Some of the motifs of this traditional cloth are also used symbolically to hint for example at resistance against foreign military domination. Throughout the decades, Kente has inspired many creative minds including Ghanaian artist El Anatsui.
The scarves donned by the CBC members in 2018 were created - at the request of LaDavia Drane Esq., former Clinton's Director of African-American Outreach, and Dr. Kwamme Anderson, former VP of Congressional Black Caucus Foundation - by fashion designer Titi Wreh, a Liberian immigrant herself who arrived in the States in the mid-'80s to study. In that case Wreh employed colours - that also reappeared in the scarved wore by the Democrats today - in a symbolical way: black for maturation and spiritual energy; blue for peacefulness, harmony and love; green for vegetation, planting, harvesting, growth and spiritual renewal; pink for the female essence of life and red for political and spiritual moods.
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