Through the past recent years, the nation has experienced a dramatic divide between local police departments and activists. The causes of this divide are greatly blamed on something that has been around for thousands of years, and will probably go on for hundreds more: racism. Racism can be a tender subject to talk about. As an individual, it can be difficult to form a thorough opinion on the social events that are happening in our country, because you can’t always talk openly on the subject. However, I believe any argument requires the use of facts to answer a question, rather than rely on opinion or gut feelings. Black Lives Matter, is a group of activists that have commenced protesting in recent years due to numerous deaths of black men at the hands of police. Their primary focus is to address police brutality towards blacks in America, as well as fight institutional racism. The question is, are their intentions misguided?
To start off, I’ll ask the question: What reason would propel officers to be more likely to shoot a black man rather than a white man? Many people may answer this question with“racism”. However, while some might believe blaming racism is a solution, I feel this is too obscure. What makes a person racist? How do you know if a cop is racist? What prevents racism? How do you combat racism? These questions cannot scientifically be answered, so we must delve into the statistics of this matter.
In 2015, cops killed almost exactly twice the number of black people than white people. In 2017, this number grew to about a 3:1 black to white ratio. Now considering white people make up 62% of the population and black people only 13%, this means that proportionally a significant amount of blacks were shot at a higher rate than whites (The Color of Crime). One can quickly jump to the conclusion that cops are obviously intentionally targeting black citizens, right?
However according to New Century Foundation, an organization that was created in 1994 to study and understand immigration and race relations as to help blend America’s increasing diversity, black people are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery(The Color of Crime). On top of this, when black people commit crimes of violence, they are three times as likely to use a gun than a white person. Black youth are fifteen times more likely to be in a gang than white youth. In gangs of all ages, roughly 35% makeup black people while only 11% are white people(The Color of Crime). The most significant root of these facts is that black Americans make up 27.4% of the country’s poverty, the highest of all racial ethnic groups. I say these facts not to label the black community in any way, but to provide insight into the the encounters police are seeing.
To dabble in brainstorming and hypothesizing, might it be possible that black citizens are killed at a higher rate than white citizens due to the fact that they commit more crime? Would it be a stretch to argue that black citizens are actually shot (proportionally) LESS than white citizens? If a black male is seven times more likely to commit a murder than a white male, but only three times more likely to get shot by police, wouldn’t this (proportionally and hypothetically) support black victims?
Another thing to take a note of, is the kind of police training and funding police departments are receiving. According to Police Chief Magazine, “The costs associated with operating a quality-training program are increasing at a time when city police budgets are shrinking.”(Scott). Departments are experiencing tight budgets due to reduced city budgets and the reduction of federal grants. One method that police departments have began using is contracting out training to other academies. County, state, and regional academies on average cost 11,200 dollars per trainee while technical schools spend about 4,600 dollars on each trainee (Scott). Large city and municipal departments can spend up to 36,000 dollars on each trainee, which results in a vast difference in how a technical school and a city trains officers to a different standard. It is apparent that city police departments necessitate much more expansive funding, which many are simply no longer receiving.
I believe the political group Black Lives Matter is wasting their time and resources if they wish to fix oppression against the black community. They go about raising issues about police brutality and racism. Some extreme supporters resort to violent protest and riots. I believe that racism does not play a major factor in recent police shootings. The more important factors is the fact that black inner-city communities have a historically higher crime rate than the rest of America. I believe it is more realistic to think that cops’ influences are affected by past types of criminal activity involving the black community- is this racist for a cop to do so? Or is it smart on behalf of the officer because statistically there is greater odds of a black man committing a crime than a white man? Does a cop become conditioned to believe that a black man is dangerous because statistically the average black man is more likely to commit a crime than a white man?
Simply blaming institutional racism results in no action, only words. As Ben Shapiro said in regards to the protests of Black Lives Matter activists in Baltimore, “…an uprising against what exactly? Against a black police chief, against a mostly minority police force, against the black mayor, against the black president, against the black attorney general? Against a city council that is 9 of 15 black and all 15 are elected Democrats? What is the uprising against? What is it seeking to achieve?”
The majority of black Americans voted democratic in 2012, and after having a democratic president, yet still having the same situation, it makes me wonder whether or not black gang violence and illegitimate police shootings are at the front of politicians’ agendas or not. The black community must feel helpless which in turn leads to a group such as Black Lives Matter. I by no means am going as far as to say racism does not exist within cops. I believe some people are good and some people are bad, just as some cops are good and some cops are bad. I’d just like to express that perhaps the police force over the recent years have not been influenced by racism, but influenced by the fact that they have been conditioned by the fact that crime is more prevalent in black communities.
Is the first step to improve education in inner city communities? Is the first step to crack down on gun control? Is this first step to improve welfare programs, or perhaps limit welfare programs? These are questions that I alone cannot answer, but these are the questions that NEED to be answered. The question is not whether police are racist. In conclusion, Police brutality seems escalated toward the black community due to a high number of black gang members and black crime overall. The gap between the police and the black community will continue to widen until poverty is reduced in black Americans, which would hypothetically result in black crime going down.
“The Color of Crime.” American Renaissance. New Century Foundation, n.d. Web. 28 Sept 2016. <http://www.amren.com/archives/reports/the-color-of-crime/>.
“Black Party Affiliation.” BlackDemographics. African American Ethnic Heritage, 2012. Web.
29 Sept. 2016. <http://blackdemographics.com/culture/black-politics/>.
Scott, Elsie, Ph.D. “Managing Municipal Police Training Programs with Limited Resources.”
Police Chief Magazine. International Association of Chiefs of Police, n.d. Web. 28 Sept. 2016. <http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/index.cfmfuseaction=display_arch&article_id=725&issue_id=102005>.
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