June 9, 2020

I’d like to start this post today with a little thought experiment.  The picture above is of heavily armed ‘anti-lock down’ protestors on the steps of the Michigan capitol.  This was before the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer and all of the subsequent unrest.  The fact is, many businesses that are owned by people of color were hurt by the COVID-19 shutdown just like many businesses owned by whites.  So, imagine this picture, but instead of a group of white people, this was a picture of a group of heavily armed black people protesting in the exact same way.  Do you really believe that the police would have handled this in the same way?  Do you think they would have just nonchalantly let this heavily armed group of black people roam around the capitol?  Do you think the community would have accepted this in the same way?  Any of us who are being totally honest know that a group of heavily armed black people trying to make the same exact point in the same exact place would have been treated much differently and, in all likelihood, there would have been confrontations with the police and possibly violence  (not to mention community outrage).   Just think about that for a minute.

Several senior Trump administration officials, including Attorney General William Barr, have stated they don’t believe there is systematic racism in police departments and in the justice system.  The data simply don’t support those positions.  You can’t solve a problem unless you first admit there is a problem and to continue to insist that systematic racism does not exist in police departments and in the justice system just exacerbates the problem.  Are these difficult and uncomfortable conversations to have – yes!  And I fully understand that I am a white male and I can go anywhere in the country and not have to worry about the police or entanglements with the justice system.    That said, I am not blind, and I have a personal interest in doing what little I can to help fix this.    My ex-wife is Hispanic which means that my daughter is of mixed race.  If nothing else, I owe it to her to do what little I can to help make this country and this world a better place.    And eliminating systemic racism is part of that. 

First of all, the data reporting and collection of police actions, arrests, deaths of those police custody, police shootings and the demographics associated with that data needs to be more robust and accurate to facilitate the analysis required to drive true policy reform.  However, based upon compiled estimates of available data there a few startling figures that paint a pretty bleak picture.

• “The rate of in-custody deaths in the United States is more than double Australia’s and about six times the United Kingdom’s” (12 per 110K in the US; 5 per 100K in Australia; 2 per 100K in the UK)
• Police in the US fatally shoot more people than any other Western country – by far.  The US has averaged over 1000 shooting deaths at the hands of police for the last several years.  In 2018 the rate in the US was 31 fatal police shootings per 10 million people versus:  1/10M in Germany; 3/10M in Australia; 6/10M in Sweden; 2/10M in New Zealand; less than 1/10M in the UK
• According to data from 2016 police are almost four times as likely to use force on black people as white people
• The US has the highest prison population of any country in the world!!
  • “Black Americans make up a third of the US prison population, despite only making up around an eighth of the country’s total population.”

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/08/us/us-police-floyd-protests-country-comparisons-intl/index.html

To make the statement that there is no systematic racism in the policing or justice systems in this country is to deny reality.   The murder of George Floyd was just the fuse that lit off these protests.  The fuel is the underlying and long simmering anger, frustration and inaction by the government and every single one of us to recognize this disparity and work to address it. 

And even now, Trump and his associates have latched on to the ‘Defund the Police’ as something to use in campaign ads and try to further divide this nation.  Wouldn’t the more appropriate response given everything that is going on, be to ask intelligent, probing questions.  “What does that really mean?” “What would that look like?”  “Is it really reasonable for cities to spend a third of their budgets on police?”  “Is there a better way to ensure the safety of our communities?” “Is it necessary to arm police departments with military hardware and weapons?”  These are not unreasonable questions.  Why can’t we even have the conversation?  And I am fully aware that 131 police officers were killed in the line of duty in 2019 and that’s also a conversation we need to have.   But they are not mutually exclusive.   You can’t solve the problem by having one conversation at the expense of the other. 

Using strong-arm, autocratic “law and order’ tactics will not solve the problem and it is clearly not working now.  Ignoring the problem and putting our collective heads in the sand won’t solve the problem.  The only thing that will solve this problem is to 1) admit this problem exists, 2) begin having difficult and sometimes uncomfortable conversations about racism, policing and the justice system,  3) start making policy decisions based upon facts and data rather than slogans and sound bites, and 4) listening more to what all of the stakeholders are saying rather than immediately taking entrenched polarized positions on these issues.   Failure to address this now just means that the problem will be kicked down the road again and continue to simmer.  And the next time a fuse is lit because a person of color dies needlessly at the hands of white police officers, the result will be even more cataclysmic.  It’s a choice each of us has to make – what kind of a country do we want to live in? An autocratic police state filled with bigotry, hatred and divisiveness or a country where everyone is treated with respect, and we strive to make life better and safer for ALL Americans.