Armed Racism in America

Fourteen years ago during his State of the Union speech, President George W. Bush said that the police had to stop classifying Americans as dangerous or not according to the color of their skin. He directed his attorney general to end all racial profiling, a police practice based on ethnic characteristics that Bush said was wrong. Black people above all welcomed that message.

Now President Barack Obama has apparently echoed the words of his predecessor and has directed his attorney general to impose rigorous standards in order to put an end to separating good from evil based on skin color. Again, blacks have welcomed the announcement, but they have lost faith that the president’s directive will result in any changes.

Just as Bush’s promise had no effect, Obama’s will also fail to change a police force that believes itself at war with people who break the law. In a police station in Cleveland, Ohio, there is a sign inscribed “Forward Operating Base.” That’s a term the U.S. Army uses for its installations in Afghanistan where soldiers are at war with the Taliban. In the United States, the police apparently see themselves as being locked in a life and death struggle with their own people.

It comes as no surprise that Americans take to the streets in protest; they have every reason and right to do so. It’s absurd that the last minutes of Eric Garner’s life in a white policeman’s stranglehold were caught on videotape, while a grand jury claims there are no grounds for putting the policeman on trial for his actions.

The American justice system looks away from the things it should be urgently and closely looking at — and the police apparently look at things where there is little to see. The bottom line is, Eric Garner wasn’t a hardened criminal but was just engaged in selling untaxed cigarettes. That may be illegal but the police response to it wasn’t appropriate. It was arbitrary.

The police always see themselves in the right. How else can their pathetic reaction to the symbolic protest action that took place in St. Louis a few days ago be explained? Several African American football players from the Rams football team took to the field and raised their hands in solidarity. Demonstrators called out, “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” in memory of the shooting death of an unarmed Michael Brown in Ferguson at the hands of a white policeman. The St. Louis Police Officers Association found the gesture insulting to them and suggested the players be punished for their display.

President Obama believes that improved police equipment will help the situation. He wants to procure 50,000 body cameras for the police to wear on their uniforms — or more accurately, on their body armor — in the future. Obama hopes that video and audio records of police officers will prevent them from shooting first and asking questions later. But that’s just symbolic of naïve thinking, as reflected by the fact there was a video recording of Eric Garner’s death. Police brutality cannot be shown more clearly than that.

The problem in America can’t be solved in the short term. People should not delude themselves that a presidential task force can solve the problem, as Washington politics will quickly obliterate any actions it takes. At this point, we should remember the Newtown grade school massacre. After 26 shooting victims were eulogized, it appeared that perhaps Democrats and Republicans would come together and agree on some way to strengthen lax gun laws in the United States. That didn’t last very long. As soon as the American media loses interest in a story, American politics reverts to its old ways.

Above all, a task force won’t change the fundamental problem: The United States is a nation where even 50 years after the end of segregation, racism still thrives. White men still fear black men. Unbelievable perhaps, but a fact nonetheless.

Why should police officers be any different? They’re poorly trained. Instead of being better trained in conflict resolution and crisis de-escalation, they’re more heavily armed. Many of them don’t have what it takes to be a good police officer, and on top of that, they’re relatively poorly paid. Finally, they haven’t been told often enough that there’s no war going on in America’s streets. Either that, or maybe they just refuse to listen.