The Truth About Race and Policing

                  On any given day, in any police department in the nation, fifteen percent of officers will do the right thing no matter what is happening. Fifteen percent of officers will abuse their authority at every opportunity. The remaining seventy percent could go either way depending on whom they are working with.

This specific logic, serves as a theory from a man named K.L. Williams, who has trained thousands of officers around the country in use of force. The point that I found interesting was it is not only white officers who abuse their authority. The effect of institutional racism is such that no matter what color the officer abusing the citizen is, in the vast majority of those cases of abuse that citizen will be black or brown. That is what is allowed.

And no matter what an officer has done to a black person, that officer can always cover himself in the running narrative of heroism, risk, and sacrifice that is available to a uninformed police officer by virtue of simply reporting for duty. Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo was recently acquitted of all charges against him in the shooting deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams, both black and unarmed. Thirteen Cleveland police officers fired 137 shots at them. Brelo, having reloaded at some point during the shooting, fired 49 of the 137 shots. He took the final 15 shots at them after all other officers stopped firing (122 shots at that point) and, “fearing for his life,” he jumped onto the hood of the car and shot fifteen times through the windshield.

Not only was this excessive, it was tactically asinine if Brelo believed they were armed and firing. But they weren’t armed, and they weren’t firing. Judge John O’Donnell acquitted Brelo under the rationale that because he couldn’t determine which shots actually killed Russell and Williams, no one is guilty. Let’s be clear: this is part of what the Department of Justice means when it describes a “pattern of unconstitutional policing and excessive force.”

Racism is woven into the fabric of our nation. At no time in our history has there been a national consensus that everyone should be equally valued in all areas of life. We are rooted in racism in spite of the better efforts of Americans of all races to change that. Because of this legacy of racism, police abuse in black and brown communities is generations old. It is nothing new. It has become more visible to mainstream America largely because of the proliferation of personal recording devices, cellphone cameras, video recorders – they’re everywhere. We need police officers. We also need them to be held accountable to the communities they serve.

http://www.vox.com/2015/5/28/8661977/race-police-officer

President Jimmy Carter: “I was the only white child in the neighborhood”

                  Jimmy Carter came out with a recent statement that has made its way into the news, the claim: “I was the only white child in the neighborhood.” Jimmy Carter was born James Earl Carter Jr. on October 1, 1924. He grew up in the rural town of Archery, Georgia. When he wasn’t helping his father on the peanut farm, he was fishing or playing in the woods with his friends, most of whom were African- American.

                  Ultimately, the former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner said in this weekend’s “SuperSoul Sunday” interview, growing up as the only white child in a predominately black community had a profoundly positive impact on his life. Jimmy Carter was quoted on Oprah, saying:

The people with whom I worked in the field, and the people with whom I wrestled and fought, and the people with whom I went fishing and hunting were all African Americans. I felt, kind of, in an alien culture when I got old enough to go to a white school and that sort of thing.

“In fact,” President Carter continued, “I try to think of the five people, other than my own parents, who shaped my life, and only two of them are white. The other three were African Americans.”

                  Oprah then turned the conversation to recent racial tensions in the United States. “Why do you think we’re at such a divide in this country right now?” she asked. “It feels that racism is rearing its ugly head in a way unimaginable.” President Carter said he thinks the racial divide stems from a national misunderstanding following the Civil Rights Movement’s accomplishments.

In context with the class, I would agree with Jimmy Carter’s statements regarding a misunderstanding of what the Civil Rights Movement accomplished.  A lot of the misunderstanding stems from a lack of education about the social reform that took place after the Civil Rights Movement. In class we dive into specific issues and we submerge ourselves with African American life and problems these people faced. It is an issue that receives a limited amount of attention in our education system.

We need to do a better job as a nation at educating our youth on race relations in America. This specific issue served as a reminder to me of a more-simple time in American history. A time where our nation’s leaders were surrounded by Americans of color, instead of being raised in an atmosphere of exclusionary fantasy.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/president-jimmy-carter-i-was-the-only-white-child-in-the-neighborhood_us_5605a23ee4b0768126fd8840

Why I Hate the Phrase: “I don’t see color”

                  “I don’t see color,” or “I don’t care if you’re pink or green” or “color shouldn’t matter, we are all once race.” It is disgusting to me. To be frank, I hear this a lot from my friends and it’s one of those statement that has no value, but sounds good. Everyone knows that color should serve no value, unfortunately, it does. People, we live in America, race most certainly does matter. If you can enter a place of business and act like you don’t see people of color standing right in front of you, you are in denial because color is relative in America.

                  Personally, I think “I don’t see color” is a phrase that hides truth in America, and is a phrase that no one seems to really discuss, racism. Whether you agree or not, racism is alive and thriving in our country, and when people don’t acknowledge race, it makes the situation worse. If you don’t see color, hopefully you can notice the differences between the shapes of someone’s nose, eyes, and lips. I know that everyone can notice the textures of hair that grow out of the heads of those that don’t look like you.

                  For those who recognize race, you may have received some slack from people, I know I have! Somehow in America it has become bad to see color, let alone become educated about the issue our society faces everyday with the issues of race. Newsflash: I am white, but if I was black, I wouldn’t want people to tell me they don’t see color because I would want people to recognize my skin and my struggle.

                  Let’s be honest, if you were walking down a street and saw an African American man with a hoodie up and his hands in his pockets, you wouldn’t notice color? Or if you are a father and your daughter brings home a young man that was of color, you wouldn’t notice that he was black? Come on now, you would notice.

                  Saying you don’t see color steps us from having discussions that really matter. It strips us from being educated about the issues of race, and it stops us from being able to talk to one another about how difficult it can be to live in this country. When you tell me you don’t see my color, you are basically telling me that you don’t see a huge part of who I am and that doesn’t help me or race relations in our country.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roni-faida/why-i-hate-the-phrase-i-d_b_9341762.html