Lest We Forget
Nine men were arrested and charged with the intentional homicide of American tourist, Bakari Henderson on July 2017 on the idyllic Greek island of Zakynthos. It’s been almost a year since the brutal attack and killing of the young American outside a bar on the island and we have yet to see justice prevail in this case. The suspects are a 34-year-old Greek bartender, a 32-year-old British citizen of Serbian origin and seven Serbian men.
Why was Henderson attacked and beaten to death? According to reports, it was because he had taken a selfie with a woman of Serbian descent who had requested the selfie from him. A man nearby was heard saying, “There are a lot of Serbs in the bar, why are you talking to a black guy?” and proceeded to hit Henderson on the side of the head. This set-off the chain of events which led to the young man’s death.
Henderson was 22-years-old at the time and a recent graduate of the University of Arizona. He had big plans for his future and he was in Greece trying to get a new clothing venture off the ground. He was accompanied by some friends and until that fateful night, he had been having fun on the Greek island.
According to his mother, Jill Henderson, in an interview with Gayle King of CBS News, he was, “more comfortable overseas than in the United States. He just felt it was safer over in Europe and overseas in general,” referring to the racial climate against black men in the United States.
It could have been this misconception that cost him his life. After the altercation in the bar, a surveillance footage shows Anderson being chased out of the bar by a group of men, surrounded and then beaten to death. According to Greek police spokesman, Theodore Chronopoulous, “They kicked and punched him to his body and his head. His death came from hits to the head.” Henderson was on his own against the angry mob who pummeled him to the ground and there was nothing anyone could do except to stand and watch the incident take place. After the beating, his friends tried to resuscitate him but he died on the way to hospital.
In the same interview with Gayle King of CBS News, Jill Henderson had this to say about her son’s death. “What parents would raise such barbarians to do such an evil thing to another human thing.?” Perhaps that is the exact question that ran through all of our minds as we read about the beating death of this young man. However, could a more pertinent question be, “Was it racially motivated?” Was he targeted because of his skin color? The woman who approached him for the selfie was of Serbian descent and reports state that she knew the men involved in the attack. Could it have been a set-up right from the beginning? Why did she go up to a total stranger for a selfie and why did she pick Bakari Henderson? These are just unanswered questions that do need answers.
Coming back to the question of race, was Bakari Henderson a walking target because of his skin color? If so, nothing could have prepared him for the “hate” he faced on that July night, a potent force so violent that the end result was the loss of a life. This was certainly not because of one selfie with a stranger.
What animals will do this to another human being? The kind that have no respect for human life. The kind that refuses to see the human beneath the coating of skin color and the kind that decided he deserved to die because of a selfie with a Serbian woman. That is the sad reality folks.
Bakari Henderson was wrong in his assumption that it was safer in Europe than in the United States. The under-current of racism, hate and violence runs deep here just as it does elsewhere and from time to time it rears its ugly head when you least expect it like it did in that bar on the Greek island of Zakynthos.
A life lost but not forgotten.
Update:
Justice was not served in this case. The killers were initially tried on homicide charges in 2018 but none were found guilty of murder, instead they were convicted of lesser assault charges. In 2022, a second trial took place and it lasted nearly three months and here again to no avail. They were found not guilty of intentional homicide in a Greek courtroom. The original convictions of intended fatal bodily harm was upheld. One received a ten-year sentence, four received eight years each and another one received a five-year sentence.
How much is a Black man’s life worth? Would the outcome have been different if the victim had been a White man? What do you think?
A video showed the brutal attack in its entirety and it was perpetrated on an unharmed person. I can only imagine the terror he must have felt on that fateful night. If you ask me, I would have locked them up and thrown away the keys! Or given them the same punishment they meted out on Bakari Henderson. Inhumane? Not really, the animal-like behavior that the killers showed another human being was and still is hard to stomach let alone to see them get away with lesser charges. Unfortunately, we live in a world where “evil” has rights and innocent victims don’t and that is the shameful truth.
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