By Nancy Thorner & Al Boese -
Co-author, Al Boese, recently read a story about a policeman’s harassment of an African-American who is an educated and accomplished, successful financial advisor. The story is found here.
The experience of the African-American financial advisor in the story is likely only one of many experienced by black people from all segments of their population and is odious, patently unfair and has no place in a civilized society. Maltreatment by law enforcement and public officials of any innocent and law-abiding person is unconscionable and intolerable irrespective of ethnicity or zip code.
What happened to George Floyd is an outrage and inhumane behavior by deeply flawed individuals (including the 3 cops who simply stood by and allowed the atrocity to continue), who should never have been allowed to serve as police officers owing to their past record.
But despite the despicable behavior of the three policemen in the murder of George Floyd, as in past situations, what the media conveniently failed to report was that Floyd had landed five years behind bars in 2009 for an assault and robbery two years earlier, and before that, had been convicted of charges ranging from theft with a firearm to drugs, the Daily Mail reported.
Not that any of this would have mattered or should have mattered to the thousands of protesters who took to the streets, for George Floyd's murder was viewed as a symbol for police brutality against blacks.
As a side note, collective bargaining agreements and policies controlling most public employees make it difficult if not impossible to terminate unfit and incompetent persons unless and until something like the Floyd incident illuminate the flawed individual(s). Then, action is swift and appropriately so.
Systemic racism?
In our country, sadly racism does occur among the general population, and obviously in police forces as well. However, to identify the existence of racism in the nation as systemic is a very wide brush of accusation that is not supported by facts, but that is of little comfort to anyone who becomes a victim of the vile practice of racism.
So what is happening? What the vast majority of Americans find offensive and objectionable is not the color of a person’s skin, but of their behavior. Tragically, data supports the fact that, and for many truly systemic reasons, a disproportionate number of African Americans commit serious crimes and are therefore disproportionally arrested, convicted and serve time for those offenses. This then gives the impression of systemic racism, especially among the police.
An op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal by Heather Mac Donald on June 2, 2020, pushed back on the notion that there is widespread systemic racism in American law enforcement, The Myth of Systemic Police Racism.
The article is worth reading to better understand the facts and the reality. It is not an apology or disregard for the despicable action that took Mr. Floyds life, but so we can better understand what is going on and focus on weeding out the bad apples rather than degrading all police officers and leaders who in substantial numbers are good and well-intended, and in whom the general public and specifically the African Communities rely to keep them safe.
It is a paradox that a high majority of the black population on the one hand distrust the police but is in desperate need of their presence to keep their communities safe and protected. And, it is tragic that the unrelated radicals among the protesters choose to destroy business and property in the very neighborhoods that belong to and serve the people who live there.
Mac Donald notes that while Floyd’s ultimately fatal arrest was horrifying, it is not “representative of the 375 million annual contacts that police officers have with civilians.
Crime determines arrest, not race
A solid body of evidence finds no structural bias in the criminal-justice system with regard to arrests, prosecution or sentencing, Mac Donald writes; rather, crime and suspect behavior, not race, determine most police actions. As to the evidence Mac Donald writes:
"In 2019 police officers fatally shot 1,004 people, most of whom were armed or otherwise dangerous. African-Americans were about a quarter of those killed by cops last year (235), a ratio that has remained stable since 2015. That share of black victims is less than what the black crime rate would predict, since police shootings are a function of how often officers encounter armed and violent suspects. In 2018, the latest year for which such data have been published, African-Americans made up 53% of known homicide offenders in the U.S. and commit about 60% of robberies, though they are 13% of the population.
Mac Donald further highlights violence that was committed against blacks over the weekend in Chicago and notes that the reason that blacks die from homicide at a rate 8X higher than whites and Latinos combined is not because of the police, but because of crime." 85 were shot, 24 fatally, over Memorial Day weekend, Chicago’s most violent weekend of 2020.
If Black Lives Matter, except when blacks kill blacks as over the Memorial Day weekend in Chicago, what about Black Police? Do their lives matter? Perhaps not, as there is no media or activist outrage for Mr. Dorn, except among family and friends. So, where is the outrage; it doesn’t exist because David Dorn was a cop resisting anarchy.
John Kass got the irony of the situation across effectively in his Chicago Tribune commentary of June 3, 2020, “Is anyone taking a knee for David Dorn?” As Kass related:
"Dorn was African American. He was unjustly killed. His life mattered too, didn’t it? But there aren’t any protests for Dorn, no public kneeling in his memory.
Dorn, 77, was a retired St. Louis police captain. The other night, as violence raged in St. Louis, Dorn was alerted to an alarm at a friend’s pawnshop. He did what law enforcement officers are expected to do. Dorn answered the call. He tried to stop a gang of looters. The details are incomplete, but we do know he was shot to death. And there is a video."
Burt Prelutsky opines
As to why Democrats keep calling this country racist, in spite of twice electing a black man as president, Burt Prelutsky, a CA writer whose daily witty, political commentaries can be subscribed to by contacting Burt at burtprelutsky@icloud:
“The Democrats call the country racist because their very existence as a major political party requires that they pander to the lowest common denominator in both races, but particularly to blacks. Without continuing to receive 90% of black votes, they not only couldn’t win the presidency (they haven’t carried the majority of white votes since 1964), they would have a tough time electing governors and mayors.
As for ‘systemic racism,’ it’s what they had in the South during the days of Slavery and then, for another century, Jim Crow. It meant that racism was official state policy that mandated poll taxes; separate, but inferior, schools; segregated water fountains, lunch counters, theaters and bus seats.
These days, if anyone makes even a slightly racist remark, he can write off a political career, at least if he’s a Republican. Even Joe Biden came in for a tongue-lashing when he accused blacks who couldn’t choose between him and Trump of not being authentically black.
In a sense, he was telling the truth, but when it comes to race, people are not supposed to speak their minds. The exceptions to that rule happen to be blacks, including politicians and Al Sharpton, who have based their entire careers on demonizing white people.
During the Great Depression, Hitler told the poor and starving Germans that it was all the fault of Jews. Here in America, black politicians enjoy the same success by blaming black poverty, ignorance and a through-the-roof illegitimacy rate, on Whitey"
We will never be able to get this business right, if we persist in the double standards: against Republicans, Conservatives, Cops, Corporations, Private business owners, black or white, anything goes in the name of justice.
