The Killing of Amadou Diallo, the 20 years Anniversary. Our Past and Our Present, Nothing Seems to Change.

By Kemi Seriki

On February 4th, 1999, Amadou Diallo an immigrant from Guinea West Africa was maliciously and aimlessly murdered by NYPD plain-clothed officer as result of so-called mistaken identity. Amadou Diallo was mistaken for a rape suspect, and four NYPD officers loaded 41 bullets in his direction in which 19 bullets hit him. He was shot dead in the entrance of his apartment building at 1157 Wheeler Avenue in the Soundview of the Bronx. Amadou who was described by relatives as shy, hardworking and devout Muslim was never questioned or tried in the court of law. These officers took the law into their hands and murdered an innocent man.  The four officers involved were charged with second-degree murder, and they were later acquitted of the charges in United States court of law that pontificates “Equal Justice for All.”  

Memorialize Mural of Amadou Diallo

The Media Report

The media propaganda machine didn’t fail in their negative portrayal of people of African descent. Historically, unarmed blacks or a person of color who are innocently killed by police are often the targets of the negative and biased report by traditional media in dehumanizing their character to justify the unlawful death. The press told Amadou Diallo’s story, as they want the public to view him. He was described and tagged as an unarmed West African street vendor who migrated to the United States to work to support his impoverished family in Africa. The media labeled him as been poorly educated without knowledge of his education background. Knowing that the community was mourning the death of this innocent young man, the media dug into Amadou’s political asylum application accused him of falsifying information. It is as if exposing the claim Amadou Diallo made on his asylum application that he was a victim of torture from Mauritania justifies that NYPD should cruelly slay him.  

The story behind the headline: My heart will cross this ocean

We would never have known the true story of Amadou Diallo and his family until the release of the publication of My heart will cross this ocean-The story of Amadou Diallo by Kadiatu Diallo and Craig Wolf.  Kadiatu Diallo, the mother of Amadou, bring into light the true story of her beloved son Amado Diallo. With the help of Craig Wolf, Kadiatu brings the reader to the root of her son’s story in Africa. She expressed how it feels in a mother’s heart to lose a child. She brings the reader to understand the horror and the agony she went through. Kadi did not only tell her son’s story, but she also went as far back as her earliest memories of her growing up in Guinea and the rich culture and family value surrounding her upbringing. Kadiatu grew up in a privileged family. She was a daughter of a strictly religious man who consistently opposed the French colonial system, and he strictly raised his children with Fulah traditions and Islamic beliefs.

At the beginning of the book, Kadi introduced herself as a child who had been giving away many times. Her father gave her away when she was three days old, and at the age of thirteen, she was married off against her will to a man she never loved or chose to be her husband. She had Amadou when she was only sixteen years old. At this tender age, she became a mother, a second wife in a strange household away from her own family. She raised her children alone while her husband worked abroad. Despite this ordeal, Kadiatu went back to school and established a successful business of her own. She managed to survive these challenges. Sometimes, a child sees how the parent struggle to survive, and that child learns and picks on such strength with the understanding that if my parent could go through the ordeals and thrive, I can do the same. I believe that such determination and ambition was passed down to Amadou when the mother talks about the conversations she had with her son about his visions and his aspirations.      

In the eyes of the media and the public, Amadou Diallo became “an Unarmed West African Street Vendor. In the memoir of Amadou, Kadi spoke about her son’s dreams, his goals, his extraordinary nature and who Amadou was to his family and friends. The media never bother to investigate the real story about his family background, his purpose of migrating to the United States, his dreams and his goals in life. They never mention that Amadou grew up in Liberia, Guinea, Togo, and Thailand and that he has the desire to go to college to major in computer science. The public never knew that Amadou was a well-rounded child who was loved and well nurtured by his family. According to the mother, Amadou attended an international school in Thailand, and he studied at The Computer institute in Singapore. He was fluent in Fulani, the native language of Guinea, as well as English, French, Spanish, and Thai.

The Pain of Motherhood and an Untimely Death of a Child

Only if you have been through the same experience, nobody else can ever understand the pain of losing a child. In this book, Kadi expressed the pain and the sorrow she felt when she learned that her oldest son Amadou had been killed in New York. “To sit in the middle of the night and watch your son carried into the funeral car that would have waited another eighty years for him: If God knows a greater sorrow than this. Then bind me and take my eyes so that I will never see it. If someone can dream up worse torture than crawling up the Fouta Djallon in the middle of the night, behind your dead son, then try it on me now and see if I flinch”. This particular passage was heartbroken and inconsolable, and it connects the reader to the pain a mother who lost her child to senseless police brutality.

After reading the memoir of Amadou Diallo, I asked myself if the future is all laid down in advance or is there a particular event that none of us could control. Amadou was a young man who migrated to the U.S. to achieve his American dream. His life was cut short by four NYPD police who claimed that he was mistaken for someone else. He died in the hands of those who supposed to protect him from danger. The police justified their action by saying that Amadou had been acting “suspiciously” or in an “agitated” manner. These officers claimed that this gives the impression of someone who was behaving unpredictably and they were convinced that their life is in danger. So, shooting forty-one bullets at a single person is the justification of self-defense. As Kadi stated in her book, these officers were the ones who had acted unpredictably. As the mother of the victim, she has the right to be furious that the story was never told from Amadou’s perspective. As she stated in the book, “He was the one standing on the doorstep, watching four men in jeans, sneakers and hooded sweatshirts out of their red car, heading straight for him. They were the ones who acted unpredictably. Defending her son, she continues “What would the newspapers have written if Amadou had been wearing a hooded sweatshirt bounding from a car after midnight? Suspicious African man in hooded sweatshirt startles police by jumping out of a car.”  The hooded sweatshirt was the prediction of another imminent tragic death. On February 26th, 2012, Travon Martin was murdered by a mere neighborhood watch coordinator George Zimmerman for wearing a hooded sweatshirt, and he was acquitted of all charges.       

Stitching a broken heart

At times, an event of tragedy becomes a unifying force that brings a community together. After Amadou’s death, Kadi met with others who had lost a family member in the hands of NYPD, and she learned that it is not unusual for a black man to die from shooting in New York. They all shared their anger, fear, and frustrations. They serve as the support network for each other as a result of their shared experience. Perhaps the most challenging part of recovery is squeezing good out of horror. Since the death of her son, Kadiatu Diallo had started a foundation to promote racial healing through educational programs. She has become a frequent lecturer on this issue. So, sometimes when you think that you cannot stitch your heart back together, go to work on the hearts of others. And, this is when the healing process begins.

Nothing has changed 

Even though this tragedy happened twenty years back, the loss we suffered in our community is something we have to integrate into ourselves, not something we can transcend and put behind us. What has happened to Diallo’s family 20 years ago continue to occur in African immigrants’ community and other communities of color all over the United States. Nothing has changed since Amadou Diallo’s death, and so many innocent lives have been lost in the hand of police not only in New York but all over the United States.  In most of the cases that involved police killing of an innocent man, the police officer involved usually acquitted and walk free.   High profile cases police-related death includes Mohammed Bar, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Akai Gurley, Tamir Rice, Laquan McDonald, Matthew Ajibade, Freddie Gray, Sean Bell, Chinedu Okobi, Sam DuBose, Alfred Olango and many others. 

Pulling Together & Fighting for Justice

For the first time, people of African descent came together to fight for justice when Amadou Diallo was murdered. African Americans, the African immigrant community, the Latin Americans, the Caribbean Americas and many other concerns citizens came out to rally for the injustice suffered by the Diallo’s family. Black community leader like Al Sharpton led the protest chanting “No Justice No Peace” in front of police plaza, and many were arrested for civil disobedience. Without the support of a diverse group of people, the killing of Amadou Diallo would not have been brought out to the public for the whole world to see. The officers would not have been arrested and charged even though, and they were later exonerated. The communities who came out to protest police brutality understand the systematic racism in America. They know that Amadou Diallo was not the first and he would surely not be the last person that would be unjustly killed by a law enforcement officer.    

Black Lives Must Matter to All! 

African Immigrants came to America in search of greener pasture, and we believed that by working hard, be a law-abiding citizen, achieve the highest degree possible and get a good job would immunize us from racial discrimination and social injustice. The media portrayal people of color in America especially the African Americans have a specific view of as being lazy, engage in criminal activities, and they want to remain in the ghetto. African immigrant community must understand that we share the same ancestry heritage with African Americans and whatever befall them also befall us. For example, when police discriminatorily harass you, the office does not care about your professional qualifications, your level of education or if you are a Nigerian or Ghanaian America, all the police see is a Black person. To understand the reasons for these stereotypes, you must dig into the real history of racial inequality in the United States. If you don’t understand the history of slavery, segregation, institutionalized racism, prison industrial complex, racial inequality, white privilege, everything else will confuse you. On this note, we must pull together with other people of color to fight racial injustice in America.

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