Racial discrimination against people of color, recently compounded by the brutal murder of African American George Floyd in the US police custody in Minneapolis, has centuries old history in the United States
The letter now circulating on media outlets had been a part of the archives of the institute for compiliation and publication of Imam Khomeini.
It reflects an account of nearly 500-year old history of discrimination against the people of color across the United States.
This letter recounts some interesting points, as if they were written for today, considering the recent events and widespread protests in the United States.
In response to the humanitarian actions by Imam Khomeini, who ordered the release of female and black diplomats being held after US embassy was overtaken by revolutionary students in 1979 , Andrew Roman, an American Muslim protesting the racist policies of the US government, wrote an open letter to Imam Khomeini.
He wrote in the United States and sent a copy to the Consulate General of the Islamic Republic of Iran in San Francisco. In a report on the reflection of Imam Khomeini's order in the United States, the Secretariat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent the translation of this letter to Imam Khomeini's office on December 26, 1979.
The significance of this letter becomes more evident as the 46-year-old Floyd died on May 25 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after a white officer pressed his knee on the African American’s neck for nearly nine minutes until he suffocated.
In a video captured at the scene, Floyd gasped for breath and said, “I can’t breathe,” as police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck while three other officers just looked on.
Floyd’s death has reignited deep-rooted indignation over US police brutality toward black Americans and revived the Black Lives Matter movement not in the US alone but in a global scale.
The case of Floyd was the latest as black Americans across the US have always lived in fear of law enforcement officials that monitor their every behavior, attack them on the street and in their homes, and kill them for the slightest alleged provocation.
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