Criminal Justice and Racism
In their encounters with the police, a black man is 3 times as likely to be killed as a white man. We have seen George Floyd killed because of a counterfeit $20 bill. We have seen Eric Garner killed over selling a pack of unlicensed cigarettes. We have seen Daunte Wright killed over expired license plate tags. Michael Brown killed over walking in the middle of the road. Philando Castile killed over a broken tail light. Walter Scott killed over a non-functioning brake light. Alton Sterling killed while selling CDs. These killings provoked widespread community outrage, but little accountability. https://www.thesun.ie/news/6880918/eric-garner-george-floyd-timeline-black-people-killed/ and https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/high-profile-cases-killings-us-police-77196885
Finally an officer has been convicted of excessive use of force. But let’s be clear. Prosecutors have been loath to prosecute. Juries have been disinclined to convict. Police officers and their unions have been exceedingly protective of their brothers and sisters in blue when they so clearly dishonor their badge and uniform. Civil service laws and union contracts have been used to protect rogue officers who should have been off the streets. Politicians have hidden behind “law and order” rather than confront and reform long standing systemic racism and excessive use of force in police practices.
We do need police officers for public safety, but that does not excuse the excessive use of force differentially applied to African American men, does not excuse mass incarceration for drug crimes and does not exonerate the truly inexcusable killings of African American men by the police for minor infractions.
It is our society that has condoned, glorified and celebrated excessive violence on TV, in video games and in the movies. It is our society that has armed its citizens to the teeth with assault weaponry and other means of mass murder. It is our society that too often excuses and looks the other way when confronted with the daily realities of pervasive racism and a corrupt and fractured system of criminal justice.
Let us celebrate for a moment a criminal justice system that worked, as it should in convicting Derek Chauvin, but let’s not lose sight of the national, state and local reforms that will be required to bring equal justice into what is a very badly broken system of criminal justice.