Last year, the most extensive public exhibition about police violence and institutional racism went on display in Britain. War Inna Babylon, at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, investigated the scope of policing and contextualised the experience of Black Britons who have fought for justice. Its primary focus was the brutal and hostile policing that our community faces and the many lives that have been tragically stolen by the police. Exhibition organisers, including myself, compiled a list of 136 names of Black people killed in police custody or after contact with the police since 1990, alongside documentation of numerous others since the death of David Oluwale in 1969.
This week we have been forced to come together again – not to celebrate any progress in race relations between the police and our community, but to mourn for another young Black man who was tragically and inexplicably killed by police. Chris Kaba, who was fatally shot by the police on 5 September, is one of 35 Black men who have been killed either while in police custody or after contact with the police since Mark Duggan’s death in 2011. Many of these men died after the “use of force”.
