Our Law Enforcement is Full Of Racists
“it’s becoming even more prevalent that our law enforcement is infiltrated with racists.”
(from https://www.theroot.com/illinois-police-officer-resigns-after-racist-social-med-1848756282)
The media today as usual had many terrible things.
But there were multiple articles on the corruption of cops- specifically their racism and violence.
A Texas cop even killed a man outside a convenience store yesterday.
But this is not new.
In fact:
“The U.S. policing system has been racist since its inception during the slavery era. The first municipal police department in the country was in Charleston, South Carolina, and it was conceived as a slave patrol to monitor and surveil the Black enslaved population and prevent them from planning any resistance efforts to achieve freedom. In the same state, a riot by enslaved people in 1639 led to the passage of a law requiring enslaved people be kept in “due subjugation and obedience.” Legislators in Virginia passed a law removing felony penalties for the murder of enslaved people who resist masters. Laws like these may not be on the books anymore, but they are still in effect when it comes to policing Black communities — from the way in which policing operates as an occupying force in these communities to the legal barriers against holding police accountable when they kill community members. Police brutality and the resulting protests recurred throughout the 20th century.
Again and again, commissions convened to examine why police brutality sparks unrest have come to the same conclusion: We must address the poverty and systemic racism that go hand in hand with policing communities of color.”
(from https://www.aclu.org/news/criminal-law-reform/how-do-we-end-racism-in-policing/)
But how do we address these systems when people refuse to do the individual work required to dismantle racism?
Defunding the police, reforming them, these are all steps- but the cops that remain remain racist.
This change has to come from the inside out.
Every cop going through vigorous psychological and emotional testing and not hiring any who show racist/sexist tendencies. Again, the odds of states going through that effort is slim- as well as current officers also using therapy and other practices to navigate their lingering bias.
