A Facebook friend of mine posted an article on my Facebook wall. It’s an interesting perspective that I haven’t
heard. I like that the author cites so many benefits that we enjoy in the
United States. I also appreciate that he shows gratitude for the police and
acknowledges that it’s not an easy job. Your comment about “some people don’t
think [Ferguson] is about racism” could be true. I think the protests are about
race though. I don’t think the author has a sound assessment of what protestors
are protesting because I don’t believe that
Michael Brown’s story is just about Michael Brown. It’s my understanding
that protestors are not saying that the police are inherently bad. Instead,
protestors are trying to educate the U.S. regarding historic trends in our
nation that point to racism as still being an issue.
Our criminal justice system has concerning patterns over
long periods of time. People that are black are more likely to be targeted by
the police than white people. 1/3
men that are black are incarcerated. When you compare that to people that
are white, in 2010
black men were more than six times as
likely as white men to be incarcerated in federal and state prisons. What’s
up with that disparity? That sounds concerning that the color of someone’s skin
could correlate to a different experience in the criminal justice system. Again,
this isn’t just about Michael Brown, his story is a story that highlights this
broader issue with incarceration of black males or violence by the police
targeted to black males.
In trying to understand what could be behind that racial
disparity, ONE reason might be the way in which our criminal justice system
operates. Our attitudes about race impact how our criminal justice system
operates, like when a police officer makes a snap judgment about a suspect in a
crime. Those snap judgments are not intentional, but they are impacted
by the situation surrounding the police officer and their psychology. Police’s
perception about race impacts how they respond when they are enforcing the law.
For more on perceptions of race impacting people’s attitudes: read this
article which talks about race and attitudes about punitive action. See
this article that illustrates the impact the above statistic has on people’s
perceptions.
We as a society can take steps to create a change in these
statistics, not by shaming our police officers, but by creating tools that can
unearth unintentional racism. I’m not assuming that the cameras
that Betsy Hodges wants police to wear in Minnesota is directly related to
this conversation about race, but it is an example of a pilot project that can
increase transparency and accountability of the police. The author who wrote
the article you shared, Bart, trusted the police, but that’s not true for many
Americans that have felt targeted by the police for no reason other than the
color of their skin. Pilot’s like the Mayor’s could help the community restore
trust in the police, or reveal unintended subconscious racism that can be
de-programmed. We all need deprogramming of racism.
Once a crime is committed, a
white person is going to get more sympathy in the media than a person of color.
Even if the person of color is the victim. In turn, the stories we see
around us are about crime that people of color or black men have committed.
Those stories reinforce the perceptions we have about our neighbors that are
black, including our snap judgments of them.
I don’t think the explanation of why more black males are
incarcerated than whites is just that racism occurs in our criminal justice
system, or that police are the only ones responsible in this. I think there’s
racism that also occurs in our schools. There
is a higher rate of suspension of children of color in our schools. Because
of this, a Minneapolis
school took action to try and be intentional about reviewing suspensions that
have been given to students of color to ensure that they are necessary.
This is a positive example of what we can do in our schools to help manage
subconscious racism that no one wants to act on, but unfortunately, we can’t
help sometimes. This higher rate of suspension of children of color most likely
results in lower
graduation rates for people of color, of which Minnesota is an example of
that disparity. A lower graduation rate from schools could result in a
community of people that aren’t as equipped to compete in the workforce because
our school system has failed them. The unemployment rate for white people last
month was 4.9%, yet
for people that are black the unemployment rate is 11.1%. If you don’t have
the opportunity to work, the more likely you are to be poor. The National
Poverty Center at the University of Michigan
share that poverty rates for blacks and Hispanics greatly exceed the national
average. In 2010, 27.4 percent of blacks and 26.6 percent of Hispanics were
poor, compared to 9.9 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 12.1 percent of Asians.
Poverty has it’s own challenges and complexities. This phenomenon has been
cited as the “school to prison” pipeline that starts with teacher’s perception
of what students deserve to be suspended.
Supporting our teachers through providing opportunities to examine their
unintentional biases can help our students and schools. Just like being a
police officer, being a teacher is a critical job that we need to be thankful
for to all of our teachers for doing this important role.
I’ll admit that I have these unhealthy threads of racism in
me that rear it’s ugly head. For example, there have been multiple cases in
which I’ve felt a threat to my safety when walking in my neighborhood. I’ve had
to consistently ask myself if the perception of my safety has any correlation
to the color of the person’s skin that I feel threatened by. When I do this, I
realize how disappointing my reflexes are: my body is more likely to be
physiologically activated in a threated state when I feel like a black male may
be following me as opposed to a white female, or even a white male in some
cases. My body is simply responding to the inherent racism that I need to get
rid of. And that will take a long time to change my body’s programming. I know
I am part of this bigger problem, just like teachers, just like the police. I
haven’t event gotten into all the ways I make snap judgments about people in my
profession. The police aren’t bad. I’m not bad. But the police and I have
racism inside of us, and we need to deprogram it. If we all can commit to
deprogramming racism, there’s the opportunity!
This is an opportunity for a more equitable, just United
States in which all people equally benefit from our schools and justice system.
If the police take action to be intentional about racism, it may help them
restore trust with the community that currently lacks it. This restored trust
could have many benefits, including a safer neighborhood in which no one needs
to carry guns because the police and the perceptions of the police are aligned
with their actions (referring to the author that states he carries one because
he feels he needs to protect himself from others).
I believe that we all need to own our contribution to this
issue and find productive ways to move forward in mitigating racism that
exists—not just racism against people who are black. There is a lot a stake:
our schools, workforce, and future.
