Q: What accounts for the strained relations between police
and the black community?
A: The tension between police and African-American
communities has deep roots. Although dismissed by some as being a
"semi-socialist," Frantz Fanon's works on neo-colonialism makes a
strong case for the perception by communities of color that police serve more
as an occupying army than a community-based source of protection. That
perception is exacerbated when considering that early police forces in America
often had as a specific role the control and capture of slaves escaping or
rebelling. Violence, summary punishment, and death were often administered as
object lessons for community control.
A: The tension has in many instances gotten worse. That
deterioration has largely resulted from two failures.
First, the elimination of the more obvious trappings of
invidious discrimination, thought to be remedied by socially and politically
responsible legal abolishment of de jure racism/segregation, has not resulted
in a legal system that is perceived as fair and protective of individual
dignity in the face of race. Rather than being a continuing source of positive
social and political change the legal system has become the enemy in which the
basic tenets of due process — "fair notice, the right to be heard and the
right to be heard before a neutral and detached tribunal" — are believed,
based on known experience, to not exist in the black community.
Second, the acceptance of racial profiling — a concept that
grows out of poor social science — is a pestilence of oppression of everyday
life. Driving (walking, and apparently selling loose cigarettes) while black is
a harsh reality that impacts all levels of the African-American community —
regardless of economic status.
Q: Are there any statistics that indicate police should be
wary of the black community?
A: Interestingly, there are little data to support the
notion that the personal safety of police is at a higher risk because police
are in a black community. While there may be some support for police safety
risk increasing the higher the crime rate for some offenses, the risk defies
racial identification. It is commonly believed that police encounters in
response to domestic disturbances pose one of the highest if not the highest
risk to officer safety. Given the Department of Justice statistics that 69
percent of all crimes are committed by whites, the racial fear for police
safety may be unfounded.
Q: How about statistics that indicate the black community should be wary of the police?
A: Documentation of racial profiling, including litigation
and congressional investigation, has compiled a grim portfolio of that risk for
the black community. Unfortunately, only now are we nationally compiling data
on the relative use of force, including deadly force controlled for race. Some
states, such as New York, have begun to look at this question and the data so
far suggest that harm from encounters with the police is significantly more
likely if you are black or brown.
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