Now that a police officer is headed to prison for murdering a Black man, what is the next step for racial reckoning and police reform in America?
I think a lot of people wish the answer was just to get rid of racist and lunatic cops. But that’s not simple.
The Derek Chauvin trial, and the deaths of Black Americans at the hands of police officers since last May 25, has shown that police departments are not exempt from racism that pervades all sectors of American life.
I talk to one Black American on a regular basis who tells me that being Black in America means acting one way with Black people and another way with white people. Interacting with white people in a grocery store, at the bank or in almost any other social transaction means enduring suspicion, racist assumptions and questions a white person would not ask another white person.
This interaction, my colleague tells me, is hyper intensified when Black people are questioned by law enforcement.
So what lesson should white people in America learn from George Floyd’s death beneath a police officer’s knee? Before attempting to answer the question, it’s probably worth asking if most Americans are even interested in reckoning with race and policing in this country.
My guess is the answer is no.
When an elderly person is beaten and robbed, a police officer responds. When someone is maimed and bleeding to death after a car crash, a police officer responds. When someone’s son or daughter dies from a drug overdose, a police officer responds. When a domestic argument escalates into violence — well, you know who shows up.
We ask the police to deal with society’s catastrophes, and we empower police officers to carry firearms and know how to use them in order to protect the rest of us.
So how does a racist society rid its law enforcement of racism? The “defund the police” movement demands we strip tax dollars from police departments and spend the money solving societal ills contributing to crime.
I’m not sure that idea is totally absurd. But I urge anyone who has embraced it to spend a day in a courtroom and witness the parade of recidivist lawbreakers trooping past the judge.
Other reformers demand we appoint oversight and review panels to monitor police departments and flush bad cops out of the ranks. But this “Big Brother is watching” approach to reform is only going to discourage even more people from joining law enforcement.
Real reform must come from within police departments with police officers initiating the changes. I believe most police officers — like most of their fellow Americans — are good, fair-minded people.
But racism and white privilege must be tackled head-on by police departments with training and accountability that recognizes the reality of police interactions with Black Americans. Implicit bias, conflict resolution and crisis intervention must be priority training protocols.
Police officers get a closer look at human tragedy, human frailty and human cruelty than most of us would ever want to see. I know police officers, and I believe good cops are committed to justly enforcing the law. They want to work with men and women who share their values.
The rest of us must demand that they immediately live up to those values by eradicating racism from policing.
