Africa Speaks Reasoning Forum

Missing bank worker found murdered in Charlotte Street store

(http://www.rastafarispeaks.com/bp/shannon091216.jpg)
MURDERED: Shannon Banfield

HOPE for the safe return of missing bank employee Shannon Banfield was crushed yesterday when her body was found in the warehouse of one of her favourite stores, IAM and Company Ltd, on Charlotte Street, Port of Spain.
Full Article: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/20161208/news/shannon-shocker (http://www.trinidadexpress.com/20161208/news/shannon-shocker)

Bank clerk's body found in storeroom: 2 suspects detained (http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2016-12-08/2-suspects-detained)
"That pretty little girl have to get justice. Lock up everybody in the store until you find out who is the sicko who do it," one woman was heard screaming at a police officer.
Full Article: http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2016-12-08/2-suspects-detained (http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2016-12-08/2-suspects-detained)

In a country with a very high murder rate, over 400 for the year, this already sad story is showing how colorism and racism impacts people's sensibilities. "That pretty little girl have to get justice." Here, the media voiced its own sentiments and that of many in the country by quoting a bystander.

If more attractive, light-skin and white people were being murdered, the government and police would be more aggressive in trying to solve this problem.

This is something the majority aren't willing to face, when time and time again we see this to be true. It is because of colorism, and racism naturally, that people do not offer better service and attention to black Africans. It is also the reason more primitive Africans on and off the continent have accepted poor conditions, expect poor conditions and do not demand better (tokenism is not better). It is the same reason dark skin Africans, more so the more primitive ones, are not protected by respective institutions and are generally met with automatic disdain. Take the San, the Twa and other pygmy groups as an example.

It is generally thought that colorism in its gravest form is more an issue in countries with very mixed racial populations, but it is just as grave on the continent. Every African country has a 'beautiful people/tribe'. What is meant by that is usually the people/tribe with the majority light or brown skin Africans. It is also those groups that are likely to have the highest standard of living, albeit within an already pathologic standard.

Indeed, a sad story all around.

When this story occurred I stepped back and observed the reactions of our society hoping even praying that we would surprise me....we didn't.

We aren't even seen as worth the effort by ourselves. The people that were baying hardest at the moon for the blood of the perpetuator didn't look like Shannon they looked like the countless missing and dead young, middle age and older darker skinned women whose posters we ignore in City Gate or when their family send out post pleading for information. We don't even come to our own rescue.

Some said the reason the response was so strong was because of the ordinariness of her activities and the brutality of her end. My question was 'when a young Sister or Brother goes to a job interview and never returns isn't that just as ordinary?'