Jamaican Author, Marlon James,Criticizes “Third World” Police in United States

Jamaica’s Marlon James, winner of the 2015 Man Booker literary prize, has stated that the United States has “Third World” police, which has resulted in “almost state-sanctioned” killings of minority populations there. James made his observations at a Paris literary festival, saying that some police officers in the US believed they were above the law; he compared these officers to the death squads operated by the military rulers in Argentina in the 1970s. He said that what was alarming to many people was the nearly “state-sanctioned” nature of the violence committed by police. James, who has lived in the Us for over 20 years and who teaches at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, believes that the “Third World” police in the US horrifies his friends from Nigeria and Kenya. He also said that he does not believe that most Americans even realize what is going on because it is the minority community that is victimized by the situation. “We are naive in that we never pay attention to violence until it affects us,” James told his audience.