This is a truly thought-provoking analysis, Rodney. It makes me think
of this French film I have recently seen ("Les Misérables" by Ladj
Ly): three police officers patrol the streets of a poor and largely
Black neighbourhood, and one of them happens to be Black. But he only
rarely opposes the actions and words of his white superior, even when
the latter does and says completely unacceptable things. In fact, the
Black policeman is usually passive when his superior abuses his power
and violates people's rights.

At the same time, the three police officers have to deal with a
terrible conundrum: they are trying to do their job in a neighbourhood
which is plagued by drug abuse etc. and where some boys openly treat
them with utter contempt.

I would say that Ladj Ly, who grew up in the same neighbourhood and
also co-wrote the script of this film, has shown in a very compelling
way that simply diversifying the police force is not enough to solve
the problem of police violence and abuses in such neighbourhoods, and
- simultaneously - that society puts too much pressure on police
officers who are unable to cope with the complex problems engendered
by poverty, systemic racism and the dehumanizing environment of
neglected tower block estates.

Joanna











On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 3:57 PM Coates, Rodney <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Because Black Lives Matter, we need to understand it’s not the police but the system that needs to change
>
> Rodney D. Coates
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> My father, Aubrey L. Coates, the son of a sharecropper, was a Navy, WWII veteran.  He used to talk about how the Navy did not trust blacks, during WWII, and so even on guard duty they were given wooden guns to patrol.  After honorably discharged, my father came back to E. St. Louis, married my mother, and for a bit tried a variety of occupations.  One of his passions was photography (from him I get my passion for the camera), yet a black in this profession in the 1940s was out of the question. Racial hiring practices meant that many jobs were just not on the table for blacks.  One area that was federal employment, especially for black veterans.  Therefore, he became a Postal employee, delivering mail (on foot) for about 10 years. Then as federal funds flooded into the transit system, and the resulting jobs again favoring veterans, he began driving busses.  Finally, again as federal funds started making their way into law enforcement, my father sought employment with the E. St. Louis Police department.  Here he achieved many firsts, such as the First Black Detective, First Black Motorcycle Patrolman and first Black on the Canine Squad in the history of the East St. Louis Police Department. Upon retirement, he used his retirement lump sum to purchase a grocery store -Coates Grocery Store was a legend in E. St. Louis.  He thus became the first black to own a grocery store in the city.  Yea, my dad was all that and a bag of chips.
>
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> In 2019, another 1004 people were shot and killed by police.  Of these, the majority 49% were people of color with 23% were black, 16% were Hispanic.  Only 31 % were white, while the remainder were unidentified (20%) and other (4%). Close to 96% were males, most likely between the ages of 30-44 (37%).  Accounting for these deaths has become a closet industry in and of themselves, as pundits, scholars, journalists, and activist fill the airwaves, write volumes, kill trees, and shout to the belfries that this too must end.  But it continues.  One of the solutions offered has been to increase the diversity of the police, but this may be good in and of itself it does not solve the problem.  Let us turn to these and see what we can learn.
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> (The Washington Post 2020)
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> First of all, black and white offers have distinctly different views with relation to their roles as police and particularly deadly encounters between black-police encounters.
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> Black officers, for example, are more than twice as likely as white officers (57% to 27 %) to view black deaths as signs of broader societal problems.  And while white officers (92%) are overwhelmingly likely to see the gains that blacks have made, blacks are less likely to agree (only 29%).  Others differences demonstrate the wide gulf that separates these two types of law enforcers.  White officers, for example, are more likely than blacks to feel that they have been verbally abused by community members in the past month (70 % vs. 53 of black officers); to say they had to fight or struggle with a suspect for existing arrest in past month (36% vs. 20%); and to have fired their weapon while on duty at some point in their careers (31% vs. 21%).  Finally, white officers are more likely to be more callous toward others since joining the force (62% vs. 32%) and to be more likely to be frustrated with law enforcement work (54% compared to 41%).  (Gramlich 2017)
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> Simply increasing the number or percentage of black officers may not have an impact upon the number of black killed by police.  Black officers, similar to their white counterparts, are likely to target African Americans based upon their views of the Fourth Amendment which permits police the use of deadly force when they feel that an imminent threat of serious bodily harm or death of others is at stake.  The fact that blacks and Hispanics are more likely to be perceived as such a threat stems from the reality that both black and white officers hold unconscious racial biases that lead to more aggressive policing of African American.  Lastly, black officers, just like their white officers, experience anxieties and vulnerabilities due to how they believe that they are framed by the black community.  That is, that they as being “the man” representing “the system” are more likely to be targeted by violence from the community. Two different threats are encountered here: 1) both black and white police are more likely to feel that their masculinity is being threatened.  Alternatively, the targeting of black communities by police impacts upon both black and white cops.  Particularly if performance reviews, pay increases, and promotions are tied to sops and frisks, citations, and number of arrests –racial profiling becomes a significant way to improve all of their numbers.  Lastly, being a “good cop" might mean that black officers more aggressively patrol black people in an effort to demonstrate that they fit into the law enforcement community that is “blue”.  Thus, over policing by black police might be associated with attempts to avoid marginalization, demonstrate that are a good cop, and consequently find themselves dissociating from the black community.  (Carbado and Richardson 2018)
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> So clearly,  putting more black and Hispanic cops on the street will not solve the problem.  The problem, you see, is not the diversity of police but the diversity of America.  The increasing diversity of America is placing increasing pressure to change how decisions, rewards, and realities are defined.  Police departments have historically been used to put a lid on these conflicts, and they have historically done a bad job often resulting to excessive and deadly force against minorities.  Such things as zero tolerance police tactics that target minorities and minority communities are part and parcel to the problem. Politicians, whip up the public, each electoral cycle to get tough on crime.  Newspapers, continually feature the crime of marginalized persons and communities, as it tries to increase its readership.  Banks and insurance companies, with redlining, continually to make it difficult to purchase much less live in these communities.  All of which only aggravates both white, but as well black and brown, middle class flight from the troubled areas.   And then, we find k-12 public schools, with even less taxes, becoming more reliant upon both police as well as suspensions/expulsion policies that target black and brown students.    And the cycle repeats.  Now add to this, often we place our newest or most troubled cops in these most troubled communities –and Houston we have a problem.
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> Police are not the answer to these problems.  We must stop pitting them against problems created by structural racism. Poverty and race are not criminal offences.  We must create pathways out of poverty, with schools as the engine of change.  Put simply, we must dismantle the cradle to prison pipeline, where police are the conductors.  Only then can we halt the escalating deaths of black and brown people at the hands of police.
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> --
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> Rodney D. Coates
> Professor
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> Global and Intercultural Studies
>
> Sociology, Gerontology and Social Justice
> Critical Race and Ethnic Studies
>
>
>
>
> The Matrix of Race: Social Construction, Intersectionality, and Inequality 1st Edition
>
> https://www.amazon.com/Matrix-Race-Construction-Intersectionality-Difference/dp/1452202699
> http://miamioh.edu/diversity-inclusion/events/coates-mlk/index.html
>
> FB: https://www.facebook.com/African-Americans-in-Higher-Education-169922867046/
> _____________________
>
>
>
>
> Note: Because of your generosity we now have raised over $60,000 for Miami's Hope Endowment for Underrepresented Students.  Please consider contributing to Miami's Hope and the future.   You may contact Evan Lichtenstein ( [log in to unmask])  Thanks...
>
>  "Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and  the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money." --Nineteenth century Nēhilawē (Cree) proverb
>
> “A true believer is one who does not hurt others with his thoughts, words or actions.” (Prophet Muhammad)
>
> The song that lies silent in the heart of a mother sings upon the lips of her child..Kahlil Gibran
>
>
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>
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Now you can check us out on Facebook

please go to..

https://www.facebook.com/Humanrightsandsocialjusticenow/

and tell all our friends..


thanks..