In February 2015, The Guardian published a couple of new stories about the connection between the Chicago police department “black site” at Homan Square and the Guantanamo prison where terror suspects have been kept as political prisoners without ever been charged. Neither the national media in the US nor the Chicago media organizations, including African-American, have pursued this story. Even after the British paper brought these issues to the attention of the public, the mainstream media in Chicago and across the US are ignoring the revelations, a subject in itself revealing about the role of the US media in a democratic society where human rights and civil rights violations occur.
One could assume that publishers are not interested in exposing corruption, torture, detention without due process, violation of civil rights and human rights for ideological and political reasons. Besides, the media assumes that if the police have detained a black man, interrogated and tortured him, while never charging him and keeping him in an undisclosed location rather than in jail, and denied him access to a lawyer there must be a good reason for it. That black man is a suspect of criminal or terrorist conduct and must indeed be guilty. After all, why aren’t the police arresting a white suburban bank executive (for a bank such as HBSC) who has facilitated money laundering operations for drug lords, all based on the bank’s testimony.
The assumption of guilt is almost automatic when it comes to blacks and Muslims in America because the political climate and institutional culture facilitates it. After all, an estimated 40% of prison inmates are blacks when the percentage of the African-American population is 13%. Although the same percentage of whites as blacks are drug users, one in three black males go to prison. The racism rooted in American culture and institutions, especially law enforcement, courts, and prisons, has now shifted to include Muslims, while Hispanics were always part of the targeted minority group.