The other thing I find interesting about this issue with the police and their treatment of Blacks is how many people view this issue as either black or white, pardon the pun, and refuse to see the overwhelming amount of grey in it.
Most people truly believe that the majority of police and police institutions are just people sitting around actively hating black people, trying to figure out how to make their lives hell.
Or that racism is instructed to police officers from the people who train and govern the policing system.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of the racism that happens by police is unintentional racism, carried out without Malice, and is a by-product of bad police policies that have nothing to do with race in and of themselves.
Let me point out a single instance of these polices and show you how it filters through a system that is not racist, but comes out racist in the end.
Lets look at the fact that Black people are harassed more by police.
Does anyone out there actually believe this is happening because the police are twirling their mustaches trying to figure out how to stick it to black people today?
The cops that do harass Black people are probably not even maliciously racist in their own intentions as they are doing it.
However, they are employing racial profiling.
Now, profiling in general is a very effective tool, regardless of how fair you think it is. It often gets results. That is why there has never been a terrorist incident on a plane out of an Israeli airport. Because they racially screen there. If you have an Arabic last name getting on a plane in Israel, you're probably getting strip searched. You may not think it is fair, and you may be right, but the results are concrete.
Also, profiling a single race doesn't just come out of thin air. A race is typically profiled for something because there is statistical and empirical evidence for a higher probability of finding that something within that race.
A higher percentage of overall crimes are committed by Blacks. Sorry, but that is statistically true.
Why that is the case is a completely separate social discussion, with it's own complexities that also needs addressing, but it is not in this discussion at this time.
So now we know why police tend to profile Black people. But why do individual police officers use profiling at all?
It isn't taught in the academy.
It isn't officially employed in police procedures. Officers aren't being told by their superiors that they have to arrest a certain amount of black people this month.
But they are being told they have to make a certain amount of arrests. And that is one of the biggest problems.
The quotas that police have to meet.
Our law enforcement system is based on a principle of giving people increased powers of authority and weapons, and then essentially having them work on commission.
That is the stupidest thing we could ever have allowed to happen. This puts cops at odds with their very mandate. They're primary concern is no longer to server the public, or protect the innocent. It's to make as many arrests as possible, at any cost.
That's like giving the Army a yearly quota on wars they need to fight in.
And anyone who doesn't think that police officers are extremely pressured to meet their arrest quotas is living in a fantasy land.
So now you have a policy, pressuring officers to make a certain amount of arrests per month. No racial malice or racial intention in this decision.
So the individual officers are naturally going to focus their attention to things that have a higher rate of crime. There is your use of profiling. Again, No racial malice or racial intention in this decision.
What is it that statistically has the higher rate of crime for the officer to profile? Black people/Black neighborhoods. No racial malice but a racial intention in this decision.
Officer harasses black people looking to fill his quota. No Racial Malice, but there is our racist act.
All of these are bad decisions but few of them are even racial at all, and none of them are motivated by actual maliciousness towards Black people. It's forced opportunism at play. And Black officers do the same thing.
If a person is being forced to catch a certain amount of fish in a day, they're going to go to the fishing hole where they are more likely to catch fish, and drop their line in.
Now, not every fish they pull out of the water will be a keeper, but they will probably have a better chance of catching their limit.
And they won't care if it is a Black fishing hole, an Hispanic fishing hole, or a White fishing hole. Just as long as they catch all the fish they're being forced to catch.
And that's how Grey it is.
You will never eliminate "systemic" black racism in a police force by scrutinizing white officers, looking for signs of malicious racism towards black people. Because for the most part, it doesn't exist. You have to look for stupid procedures and practices, things that don't even have anything to do with race. Policies that simply allow or provoke a person with increased authority to abuse it, with anyone. Then you eliminate the final result on the street.
@SharikaSoal84